Posted on 10/26/2011 8:44:02 AM PDT by fishtank
Mercury's Fading Magnetic Field Fits Creation Model
by Brian Thomas, M.S. | Oct. 26, 2011
Planets, including the earth, generate magnetic fields that encompass the space around them. Observations have shown that, like earth's, the planet Mercury's magnetic field is rapidly breaking down, and NASA's Messenger spacecraft confirmed that again earlier this year.
If the planets in the solar system are billions of years old, why do these magnetic fields still exist?
In 1974 and 1975, the Mariner 10 spacecraft measured Mercury's magnetic field strength with its onboard magnetometer and sent the data to earth. The astronomers analyzing the data at the time found that the average field strength was 4.8 x 1022 gauss cm3, which "is about 1% that of the Earth."1
A decade later, creation physicist D. Russell Humphreys published a magnetic field model based on clues from the Bible. He reasoned that earth and the planets all shared a watery beginning, in accord with Genesis 1 and 2 Peter 3:5.2 He calculated what the magnetic field strength would have been at the creation by using a mass of aligned water molecules equal to the masses of each planet.
Then, he plotted the rate at which the magnetic fields would have diminished over the roughly 6,000 years since. Humphreys wrote, "Electrical resistance in a planet's core will decrease the electrical current causing the magnetic field, just as friction slows down a flywheel."3 The resulting model accurately predicted the magnetic field strengths of Uranus and Neptune, as well as the declining strength of Mercury's field.4
In 2008, Messenger flew past Mercury and captured a magnetic field measurement, and Humphreys compared it with the decaying slope generated by his creation model. Sure enough, Mercury's magnetic field strength had diminished since 1974, right in line with the predicted value of the creation magnetic field model.
If Mercury's magnetic field is supposed to have lasted for many millions of years, then it should be very stable over vast time periods. But as Messenger's data show, researchers can measure its decay within a person's lifetime.
Humphreys wrote, "My predicted 4% decrease in only 33 years would be very hard for evolutionary theories of planetary magnetic fields to explain, but a greater decrease would be even harder on the theories."3 He anticipated more accurate 2011 measurements, which Science published on September 30.
The Science authors wrote that the field strength for Mercury is "~27% lower in magnitude than the centered-dipole estimate implied by the polar Mariner 10 flyby."5 This confirms that Mercury's magnetic field is rapidly diminishing, which in turn confirms that the field must only be thousands of years old—just as the creation model predicts.
References
Ness, N. F. 1979. The magnetic field of Mercury. Physics of the Earth and Planetary Interiors. 20 (2-4): 209-217.
Humphreys, D. R. 1984. The Creation of Planetary Magnetic Fields. Creation Research Society Quarterly. 21 (3): 140-149.
Humphreys, D. R. 2008. Mercury's magnetic field is young! Journal of Creation. 22 (3): 8-9.
Humphreys, D. R. 1990. Beyond Neptune: Voyager II Supports Creation. Acts & Facts. 19 (5).
Anderson, B. J. et al. 2011. The Global Magnetic Field of Mercury from MESSENGER Orbital Observations. Science. 333 (6051): 1859-1862.
* Mr. Thomas is Science Writer at the Institute for Creation Research.
Where did the variation COME FROM?
You have no explanation.
Your ridiculous statements do not detract from the simple conclusion that you have explained no mechanism to describe an increase in genetic variation.
A jackal is less able than a dog or a coyote because of mutation? Less able to do what exactly?
So your mechanism whereby all canine species differentiated from a pair of dogs is mutation then?
Do you see where you accepting a mechanism that creates more genetic variation with numerous species arising from a single mated pair over a few thousand years, while rejecting the same mechanism being able to to create less variation between only two separate populations in several million years is an absolute disconnect to any thinking person?
Obviously not.
I didn’t say it and didn’t imply it. You inferred it, and then gave yourself permission to ignore everything else.
I made no comment about what you said my reply implied. My statements stand on their own and you ignore them because what I posted was factual and reasonable and observed and reporducible. It is not refutable so you make a squawk about me implying something so as to not have to deal with the statements you can’t reject by science or logic. Science is on my side in everything I stated.
This piddling kind of straw man attack may be enough to make you look like you gave a real smart retort but it doesn’t wash with me or anyone else.
Also, and I don’t really expect a good answer from you,
but if my original post didn’t merit any of my points being responded to by you, why did you bother to post to me in the first place since you already made up your mind NOT to have a discussion about what I actually wrote?
If you find yourself in this situation with a post of mine again, do me a favor and not waste my time with a reply.
That's the whole point ... your reasons have nothing to do with any problem in the text. There are no Hebrew grammar, syntax, or translation issues in the text.
The reason why you have a problem with the text is that you seek to understanding the text based on something other than the text itself ... and that something else is what you are using to make the text say something other than what it says.
As to your other point, I think you meant that any geologist seeing the erosion on Mount St Helens would assume that it happened over an extended period of time.
I pointed out the example a few hundred miles away where most geologists assumed the Scablands formed over millions of hours.
It was a geologist, J Harlen Bretz, who figured out that it was a rapid process occasioned by the ice dam melting and unleashing Missoula Lake on the area.
I think this reply was exactly to the point of your St Helens post.
Correct me if I'm wrong on this, please?
Pretty much. If I lived only in the text, and didn’t have the rest of the universe to contend with, I’d have no problems with it.
...assumed the Scablands formed over millions of hours years.
Where did the variation COME FROM
The question was asked earlier and answered earlier (clue: Mendel's Genetics). It isn't my fault if you didn't see it. I don't like plowing the same ground more than once - especially for insolent, insulting hecklers. I also find it amusing that you throw out questions you can't answer and then project your inability on me.
Typical juvenile behavior.
Throwing out a name is not a mechanism.
How do you explain where human variations come from and how they persist within a population?
Gregor Mendel didn't explain it, you are obviously too ignorant to even know what Mendel did or did not explain.
It is amusing just how lost you are whenever the argument is on reality rather than useless creationist apologetics.
If you can explain to me how Mendel's work explains human variations I would be really impressed, but you cannot, because he didn't - so I am not.
Other than impressed by just how ignorant you are.
Creationism is useless.
Science is of use.
I have an explanation.
You have nothing but a name of a guy whose work you are obviously unfamiliar with.
Sucks to be you.
I contend with the same universe ...
Perhaps you compartmentalize better or just have more faith (the last is a rather low bar).
Perhaps someday you will lower yourself to my level ...
I wish you well in your search for truth.
Lower??? I envy you your faith.
Interesting observation. Dog breeders started with some breed of larger dog and eventually came to the Chihuahua. Could a dog breeder go in reverse?
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