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I'll hold my hand up and say something that you will hardly ever hear a creationist say on these boards, "I was wrong"

When I said that no amount of handwaving could explain away the simple geometrical arguments for SN1987A I wasn't anticipating how clever and inventive your handwaving could be.

The "curvature of space" argument is not applicable (too small an effect over a mere 187kLY to significantly change the geometry), but only because of other knowledge that is not as simply explained as the simple geometry.

Likewise we can see that earths velocity relative to SN1987A has not been sufficient to shrink 187kyears that the light has been in transit to 6kyears subjective on earth but we can only demonstrate this by recourse to more complicated arguments than the simple geometrical one.

Further, if this were an argument about the distance to SN1987A rather than whether it can be handwaved away then I would require you to substantiate your suggestions about how it could be closer with math and evidence, but that is not really what the discussion is about.

So congratulations. I was wrong.

However, as I am sure you are aware, astronomical confidence in a gigantic, ancient universe rests on rather more than just SN1987A, in fact the distance to the Magellanic Clouds had already been measured at ~180kLY by around 1940 using a different technique; and we can see other objects that appear to be up to ~100,000x further away. Astronomers use some 30 different techniques that I am aware of to measure the distance of distant objects and these techniques give correlating answers so confidence is high. Further we can see that the universe consists of something like 10^22 suns IIRC (unless those distant things that look like galaxies and occasionally have stars go supernova in them aren't galaxies really) and there simply isn't room for them all to be within ~6000LY.

If you are interested in the logic and assumptions behind methods of dating the earth you may find this web-page interesting.

That is very generous of you.

The math necessary to calculate relative time of astral bodies defies the comprehension of most mortals (myself included).

The fact that time elapses at different rates relative to things like velocity and space curvature leads me to believe there is room for reasonable doubt as to the veracity of the assumption that the earth is ancient. This might appear to defy logic on the surface, but so does general relativity.

Further, without a widely accepted unified field theory (that has held up in light of experimentation) I hold that other factors could POSSIBLY have a significant bearing on our calculation of time and distance in the universe.

I read recently how that astronomers were baffled at what, as I recall, was a galaxy of a determined size and distance that CONTAINED a solar system that was much further away than the galaxy in which it resided. Possibly this was due to a miscalculation. But it also underscores the fact that we do not fully understand some of the most basic forces of our universe.

Due to collaborative efforts and cumulative learning, an unprecedented amount of information is at our disposal. It is overwhelming. Learning today is akin to drinking out of a fire hydrant. The consequence of this I think is an overestimation of our knowledge.

It is like a child who supposes that after learning to read and do basic math equations they have knowledge superior to most grownups. Or maybe it is as if a time traveler deposited some simple artifact like a digital calculator in the sixteenth century. And then, a scientist of that day proceeded to remove the battery. He might discover that upon removing and restoring the battery, the calculator would cease or begin working. He might wrongly conclude that it is the battery that makes the calculator work. We would laugh, but he might be quite proud of himself for his cleverness in figuring this out.

We do not know enough about our universe to draw ABSOLUTE conclusions. It might be fair to say that observation leads us to conclude that the universe appears to be ancient or the earth appears to be ancient.

But many people feel we should go beyond this and say that the issue is beyond reconsidering. It is a fact. Well it is a "fact" as long as certain axioms that are presupposed continue to withstand further scrutiny.

I do not think it is disingenuous to hold that a biblical young earth contradicting a scientifically (observed) ancient one implies that the Bible must be wrong or that God was somehow fooling us. I hear that argument often that this view means God somehow tricked us into thinking the earth and universe are ancient by making it appear so. The same argument could have been made centuries ago in favor of a flat earth. Why would God trick us into making the earth appear flat if indeed it is not? Perhaps the same thing applies to our perception of the age of the universe. (Notwithstanding that some who held the flat earth position were claiming this to be Biblical. And those who are arguing for an ancient universe and earth are not doing so based on the Bible.)

I guess I am saying that keeping an open mind is the most scientific thing someone can do. Science must defer to faith when it comes to the rationale of the premise or axioms upon which its theories are based.

For example, most scientific theories assume that the laws of nature work the same in all places at all times. They have not changed. Now, this is in fact impossible to prove. However, it is also a reasonable premise. It is possible that some day a unified field theory will explain how the number of dimensions, laws of gravity and electromagnetism, and other fundamentals derive from a single principle. We might then discover that, at earlier stages in the universe, matter took on a quite different form than now and the laws we rely on did not apply.

I will bookmark your link and explore it when I have more time. Thanks for sending it. I am truly interested in learning more about the dating techniques. Perhaps later we can discuss them further.