Friday, August 3, 2012

Carbon 14 Production And The Solar Cycles

Referenced here is a peer reviewed article about the Maunder Minimum where it is noted that solar activity affects 14C production in the atmosphere. When cosmic rays strike earths atmosphere, 14N gets converted to 14C, which is unstable. The 14C atoms which join with O2 to form CO2 however maintain the 14C from reverting back into 14N. Being locked away in a molecule, it slowly decays over time to 12C, a more stable form of carbon.

The article mentions how when solar activity is at maximum, fewer cosmic rays can reach the earth to create C14. When it is at minimum, more cosmic rays can reach earth that more 14C is produced (See Citation Below). This makes perfect sense considering that cosmic rays are charged subatomic particles. More intense activity would mean a more vigorous solar wind resulting in more particles from the sun to be a barrier to cosmic rays reaching the earth. Consequently, less solar activity allows for more cosmic rays reaching the earth.

Another thing similar in concept to the solar cycles affecting cosmic rays interacting with earths atmosphere is earths magnetic field. A stronger magnetic field would deflect more cosmic rays than a weaker one. Earths magnetic field, with a half-life of 1400 years is set to be depleted in less than 2,000 years. Therefore, it would have hindered the production of 14C in the past compared to the present.

What does this all mean? Simply that the production of 14C in earths atmosphere is not a constant and production in the past was likely less than what is observed today. We cannot assume that creatures, even a century ago, died with a 14C to 12ratio similar to what is observed today and interpolate back in time to determine an assumed age. While it is often said that Carbon dating is good for objects no more than 50,000 - 70,000 years in age, it is in fact good only for objects that are 0 years of age.

Reference:

Friday, March 16, 2012

DVD Review: Genesis, Babel & The Chinese Language

Several years ago I purchased the DVD Genesis, Babel & The Chinese Language by Dr. Andy McIntosh when Ken Ham was in town preaching. The cover of my copy differs from the image shown on the left.

Dr. McIntosh may not be the vibrant charismatic speaker people this day in age have grown accustomed to based on the current style of preaching found in American Mega-Churches. Nevertheless, he provides a lot of interesting information regarding how the Chinese characters are derived from other characters and illustrate stories inherent in how they are formulated. I found some information similar to what is provided in this DVD at ObjectiveMinistries.org.

Shown below is an image from Objective Ministries which is exactly like one of the Chinese word Dr. McIntosh mentions in his lecture on the DVD.


Noah, Shem, Ham, Japeth and their wives totaled eight people on board the Ark.

Another interesting thing to note is a book that he references titled Maps Of The Ancient Sea Kings which shows how ancient maps depicted the Antarctic shoreline when it is currently hidden underneath ice sheets. I'll post a review of that book at a later date.

Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Book Review: Handy Dandy Evolution Refuter

Back in the 1990's I acquired a copy of the book "Handy Dandy Evolution Refuter" by Robert E. Kofahl. In addition to its interesting title, it has a creative graphic on the front cover where a monkey is holding a human skull pondering - a spin off "The Thinker".

The book is laid out in a manner where each chapter discusses specific topics in the argument against evolution. It is apparently designed for someone who is not very well versed in arguing for creation to readily access information needed to better understand any questions that may arise.
Originally published in 1977, the book is currently available online at www.parentcompany.com

Saturday, February 25, 2012

Museum Blunders: Natural Science Center

Years ago I was at the Natural Science Center in Greensboro, NC and saw a fossil that was estimated to be between 11,000 and 3,000,000 years old. A couple months ago I was back at the Natural Science Center and it was still there.


While the age range may at first appear odd, that's not what I find unusual about their age estimate. Sometimes a fossil may be estimated to be between 70 million years to 65 million years, for example. That doesn't sound as odd even though there is a wider difference in the age range (5 million years vs. under 3 million years). The odd thing about the age estimate provided, which is based upon uniformitarian presuppositions, is that the range extends across three different epochs, the Holocene, Pleistocene, and Paleocene (Source: http://www.dmns.org/main/minisites/fossil/whatfossil.html).

Moreover, the lower end of the range (11 thousand) is when the ice age ended according to uniformitarian theology. If an ice age is supposed to last a mere 100,000 years according to the Milankovich theory, then this fossil should have either an established uniformitarian age of 11 thousand to 100 thousand years or 100 thousand to 3 million years (or somewhere in between based on an established epoch for when the crab was alive). The evidence here proves how dating techniques based on an old earth viewpoint have issues and while uniformitarian endorsers act as though they have everything resolved, that is clearly not the case.

Employing the young earth creationist viewpoint on the other hand would date this fossil to be roughly 4,400 years old. This means that it would have been formed by a world wide flood during the days of Noah, and before the ice age which would have occurred in it's aftermath.

To give uniformitarians credit however, they did place the fossil age roughly before the ice age for most of their assumed age range.

Friday, February 10, 2012

Museum Blunders: North Carolina Museum Of Natural Sciences

Last month I went to the North Carolina Museum Of Natural Sciences in downtown Raleigh, NC. They had a beautiful hummingbird exhibit showing the diversity among hummingbirds and provided me with a little humor as well.


A random lady came to look at the exhibit and I told her: "Biodiversity happens because a species becomes extinct." and pointed to the plaque. She got a kick out of it and laughed quite well. The only reasoning I have that they would use to explain biodiversity by a species going extinct is if a new species develops and moves in to fill its ecological niche. This however does not add to biodiversity but rather replaces the traits from one species with those from another.

The other reasons provided also do not support the generation of biodiversity. A species interacting with each other simply means the rearrangement of genes and not the addition of new genes. A species becoming isolated from each other may generate a new species but reproductive isolation is the culprit along with genetic drift. These factors allow for speciation due to the fact that traits are removed from the gene pool. This results in less genetic diversity and can thus eliminate certain genes needed for the overall population to use to reproduce that only that population still recognizes.

Consequently, speciation would have occurred after the flood at a much higher rate that we see today because there would have been a greater genetic diversity in the parent population of each kind of animal than in the different daughter populations that have arisen through becoming isolated from one another as they spread across the earth.

The only one listed on there which implies biodiversity occurring is genetic mutation and that one has its own issues. One example are panthers. The Florida Panther is the name given to a population of Puma concolor which lives in the Southeastern United States. Through hunting and human population growth, they have become isolated to a few pockets of habitat in Florida. While they are the same species as other panthers such as cougars and mountain lions, as they are all different names for the same cat, they have slightly different traits. It is just like how a poodle and a dachshund are both dogs and the same species of dog at that.

Of course, with the population of the Florida Panther reduced to a handful of individuals, they were so inbred that they were having issues including an increase in genetic disease as a result of mutations. Therefore mutations tend to hinder diversity due to the greater frequency of harmful mutations than those that are indifferent, not to mention the extreme rarity of beneficial mutations. Needless to say, they had to introduce a few female Texas Cougars to interbreed with the Florida Panther because allowing mutations to create biodiversity to save the Florida Panther does not work. Allowing enough time for individual mutations to summate into an individual trait, as evolution claims to require, would have rendered the Florida Panther population of Puma concolor extinct.

Therefore the plaque shown in the above photograph is highly flawed. They should fire the person who derived it and hire me instead.


Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Book Review: Tornado In A Junkyard

Several years ago when Kent Hovind was in town I purchased the book Tornado In A Junkyard by James Perloff. Although Perloff is not a scientist, he did an excellent job presenting the argument for creation. He used to be an atheist and is not a born again Christian so he knows firsthand the importance of this subject to ones overall worldview. An interview with him is found on youtube and is also embedded at the bottom of this post.

Because he is a really good writer, this is one of the main books I recommend to people who don't know much about the topic and who are not scientists. I've purchased a handful of copies in the past few years to give to some folks who would benefit from what this book says that I no
longer have the original copy I bought but rather, a more recent edition.

A condensed version of his book can be found on scribd, although the book is much better as it contains tons of references on what he wrote. The wealth of references he provides in each chapter is quite well balanced between creationist and evolutionist sources. Moreover he covers, various aspects regarding creation such as the flood stories found in various cultures as well as the level of accuracy as compared to the Genesis account. He also discusses creation dates from different ancient cultures and how they correlate to the creation date according to Biblical chronology. 

This book also discusses how dinosaurs became extinct after the flood. Legends of knights slaying dragons to become heroes of their town is one of these reasons. Polonium halos are also discussed as well as the ice age. At the time I originally read this book there were a couple of questions that remained regarding the creationist perspective on the ice age that I eventually purchased and read the book An Ice Age Caused by the Genesis Flood by Michael Oard.

In addition to scientific refutations to evolution, he discusses how the concept of evolution reduces the value of human life in the minds of men–giving rise to events like the Holocaust. Hitlers quest to purify the German nation for the "Master Race" was inspired by his evolutionary beliefs. It is kind of ironic however because the Arian race is not really blond hair and blue eyed folks but rather, the Iranians. Persia was renamed Iran, meaning "Land of the Arians".

In the chapter titled: "Trial By Hollywood" Perloff discusses how peoples views tend to get swayed by fiction versus factual information and uses the example of the movie: Inherit The Wind which depicts the Scopes Monkey Trials although misrepresents a lot of facts concerning the trial. I lost respect for Harry Morgan after finding out that he is in that 1960 movie.

All in all, this book is highly recommended to anyone interested in the topic as it does an excellent job presenting the topic of creation as well as arguing for it.

Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Book Review: Scientific Creationism

When I was still a teenager I saw some videos of Ken Ham presentations with my church youth group. Having been interested in dinosaurs when I was even younger, I found the curriculum quite fascinating. Naturally, when I saw the book Scientific Creationism by Henry Morris at a local Christian bookstore at the mall I had to get it. My copy is the 16th printing from March, 1991.

This book is an excellent resource for the young earth creationist. Not only is it a good overview of various aspects of the creation/evolution debate but it also provides the various assumption and issues regarding various radiometric dating techniques.

Another excellent trait about this book is that it provides a list of ages based on the influx of various elements from rivers into oceans. This dating technique was first suggested by Edmund Halley. Other dating methods are also mentioned such as the rate of the earth's magnetic field decay or the influx of particles from space to the earth.

This book not only presents the differences between uniformitarianism and catastrophism. In the chapter concerning a Biblical interpretation of creation, Morris also presents concepts such as Progressive Creation, Theistic Evolution, the Day-Age Theory, the Gap Theory, and the Framework Hypothesis, along with why they are incompatible with scripture.

Overall, while this is an earlier book on the subject of creation it is still an excellent resource and is highly recommended for anyone to read.

Saturday, February 4, 2012

They Really Don't Know

I was fortunate that as a master's student in graduate school I had professors that did not hesitate to present two sides of a coin. My advisor did not only have us watch the movie An Inconvenient Truth but also had us watch a lecture by Richard Lindzen from MIT who disagrees with Al Gore's perspective on the concept of global warming. Another professor presented my class with papers promoting one theory with relation to what drives convection in tropical cyclones, along with papers presenting an opposing view.

Opposition in science is generally frowned on by those who embrace the prevailing view. Nevertheless, it is imperative that opposition to the prevailing view arises in order for the prevailing view to be either substantiated or rejected. Recently the evolutionary idea that birds descended from dinosaurs has been challenged. Unfortunately to students, they are usually not taught that the idea of birds being descended from dinosaurs is just a hypothesis that has become the prevailing view, is still subject to the scrutiny of future findings, and is not an established scientific fact. By doing so professors are promoting their religion with relation to a subject rather than presenting their view along with opposing views and to logically attempt to justify their views to the class.

So many people become swayed to embrace the concepts of evolution and uniformitarianism because they are not encouraged to think critically on an issue. It is therefore imperative for one to understand what it is they believe and why they believe what they do and not to just believe a view because that is the view they were taught. If they merely accept what they were initially taught as fact, without any justification for what they were initially taught, then they will easily be swayed when another view is presented which appears to have the answers.
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