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.
You obviously have little to no knowledge of science other than your ludicrous laughable sources. The less educated someone is the more likely they are to be a creationist - creationist sources are apparently well aware of this and tailor their putrid offerings to the lowest common denominator of the ignorant and dull minded.
The fossil record is an illustration of just how long life has been on Earth and the many forms life has taken - Gould argued for punctuated equilibrium rather than gradualism - apparently you were not intelligent enough to get what he was actually talking about.
Every fossil is a ‘transition’ between the population that gave rise to that individual and the populations that will come after that individual.
How would you describe an Australopithocine fossil?
What would you expect in a ‘transitional’ fossil between humans and knuckle walking apes that is not found in Australopithocine?
Do you believe in Geocentrism?
4% drop in 33 years?
no matter how you slice it, mercury has a problem. of course, another measurement in 30+ years would be helpful to confirm the pattern.
as for the universe only existing for 6,000 years... ummm... yea...
I understand what you believe and why and I respect it. I just happen to disagree. I do not believe the Genesis account was ever intended by God to be a historical/scientific statement of how God went about creating the universe, or more specifically creating the ecosphere on the Earth.
I believe it was more along the lines of a poetical allegory. In much the same way, though not inspired of God, Dante wrote his Divine Comedy. I doubt even Dante ever intended anyone to take his account as literal truth of what the afterlife was like, but it incorporates much spiritual truth.
IOW, while all Scripture is inspired of God, it is not unreasonable, at least in my opinion, to believe that not all Scripture was meant by the author to be taken as literal scientific truth.
Adaptation is indeed real, but the evos just can’t separate that from “evolution”.
The difference is that evolution requires increasingly beneficial information, on a massive scale, in order to work,
whereas adaptation is the ability created in the “kind” of animal that allows it to live in various environments, ie, to become “specialized” with DECREASING amounts of information. Unfortunately, such specialization becomes a dead end, and you get a panda or koala that can’t live except on a specific diet in a specific location.
Could this be the reason that your post are so often shallow and mocking. Are you afraid of the deep water amd?
from http://creation.com/that-quoteabout-the-missing-transitional-fossils
Evolutionists often make these kinds of frank admissions among themselves. But they are generally ‘not for publication’ as public dissension is regarded as being traitorous to the cause.
Note what Patterson said in his response to the anticreationist in question:
‘I seem fated continually to make a fool of myself with creationists. … I hope that by now I have learned to be more circumspect in dealing with creationists, cryptic or overt. But I still maintain that scepticism is the scientist’s duty, however much the stance may expose us to ridicule.’1
He seems to be saying that it’s OK to doubt as long as we don’t let the creationists know.
Being a world-renowned fossil expert, Patterson’s frank admissions were embarrassing to adherents of the ‘religion of evolution’—including himself, it would appear. But there were even more devastating revelations to come from Dr Patterson.
During a public lecture presented at New York City’s American Museum of Natural History on 5 November 1981, he dropped a bombshell among his peers that evening, who became very angry and emotional. Here are some extracts from what he said:
‘ … I’m speaking on two subjects, evolutionism and creationism, and I believe it’s true to say that I know nothing whatever about either … One of the reasons I started taking this anti-evolutionary view, well, let’s call it non-evolutionary, was last year I had a sudden realisation.
‘… One morning I woke up … and it struck me that I had been working on this stuff [evolution] for twenty years, and there was not one thing I knew about it.’ He added:
‘That was quite a shock that one could be misled for so long … I’ve tried putting a simple question to various people and groups of people: “Can you tell me anything you know about evolution, any one thing that you think is true?” I tried that question on the geology staff in the Field Museum of Natural History, and the only answer I got was silence. I tried it on the members of the Evolutionary Morphology Seminar in the University of Chicago … and all I got there was silence for a long time, and then eventually one person said: “Yes, I do know one thing. It ought not to be taught in high school.”
How so? The criteria relates to the length of time for the word "yom" in the Genesis text.
bflr
Unless I am very confused Ezekiel himself says he saw this in a vision, not in reality. The Bible is full of descriptions of visions that nobody ever intended the reader to take as literal descriptions of real events. Ezekiel himself describes a chariot with wheels within wheels drawn by a man, an eagle, a lion and an ox.
I greatly doubt he ever intended the reader to believe such an odd vehicle ever existed in reality. It was a spiritual metaphor.
Unless you intend to take every single description in the Bible as literal truth, including the highly bizarre ones in Daniel and Revelations, you are forced to do just what I am, accepting that some parts of the Bible are literal truth and others are metaphorical and spiritual truth.
IOW, we both do it.
Once we accept that fact, then we can have an interesting discussion about which parts of the Bible to put into either category.
But not as long as you try to claim, inaccurately, that you believe the entire Bible to be literally true.
Ah ... but there is your logical fallacy. You ASSUME that the evening and morning before the sun was created MUST mean something else.
What was the source of light for the days before the creation of the sun?
Will have answers for these ill-informed comments in about 8 hours....can’t go in depth now.
Are you a Geocentrist?
What would you expect in a ‘transitional’ fossil between knuckle walking apes and humans that is not seen in Australopithocine?
What reasonable explanation do you HAVE for fossils like Australopithocine?
Why do you use the term religion as a pejorative?
Do you admit that religious dogma is a detriment to objective observation and interpretation of reality?
Just out of curiosity, what is the exact word used to describe the time period that passed during the first part of creation?
To save you the trouble (in your ignorance), the Hebrew (you are aware the Old Testament was written in a language other than English, right?) word was yom. It comes from a root word that means "heat" and, as best as anyone can figure (since there aren't many native speakers of ancient Hebrew around to consult), is closest to the literal phrase "the warm hours/time". It can be used to describe the period from sun-up to sun-down, the period between one sunset and the next, a space of time, and many other related figurative expressions (all of which are used in the Old Testament). The word "day" IS a figurative (i.e. idiomatic) translation of the word! Ancient languages (with their limited vocabularies) seldom had one concrete meaning for a term, and borrowed similar words for similar ideas, relying on context to help separate the meanings. That's why some people spend their lives trying to understand these ancient languages... when other fools assert the "simplicity" of the words (after being translated into their own language, of course)...
My biggest beef with Mr. Thomas and his ilk is this:
If your faith is based on the Bible and belief in God, it should be free-standing.
But please don’t cherry-pick out scientific “facts” and claim they “prove” the Bible is true, while simultaneously ignoring the far, far greater number of scientific facts that contradict the Bible, at least as it is “often” interpreted by fundamentalists.
Believe in the Bible, or believe in science. But don’t claim your faith in the Bible is based on or fully supported by Science. It just isn’t, and frankly it makes a person look needy and a bit pathetic.
God is in no need of you, me, Darwin or some random modern scientist to justify Him or what He says.
Thanks for the ping!
In exodus and Deuteronomy, there are passages saying “6 days [yom] shall you work, but on the 7th you shall rest”...
man... do I have to work 6 “old earth days” before I rest?
You’re referring to what construes “Ultimate Authority”...
is it the bible, plainly read, or is it what some earthly authority says it means?
The Bible is true, that is enough. I may be mistaken about the Ezekial reference, but the others stand.
Science is not the be all end all of knowledge. I would boldly say that if Science proposes a theory that runs counter to the Bible, then that theory is wrong.
Trying to poke holes in it only aids those that would discard it in its entirety.
WHile there are undoubtedly things not literal, it is nowhere near the scale some would have us believe.
Creation was six days. It says so. God created the animals as they are (according to their kind). Jesus rose on the 3rd day. What would be your criteria for determining ‘metaphor’ vs ‘literal’? Was Jesus resurection a metaphor? Why or why not? Science says it is.
You ignored the Hebrew children. I didn’t mention parting the Red Sea, the plagues of Egypt and such, the finger of God writing on the wall for the king (nebuchadnezzar?)
On and on. These things are true, or they are not. I say true.
Do you have a basis for your belief? Is there a theological or textual issue in Genesis that causes you to reject the literal view?
I agree that Genesis does not contain a scientific statement ... as there are no details concerning the partial pressure of the air, concentration of H2O in the atmosphere, or the salinity of the ocean water that was created ... not to mention that the creation event is non-observable (since we werent there) or repeatable (since we cant recreate it).
So on the scientific statement ... I'm right there with you ... but the text of Genesis has all the attributes of historical narrative ... not poetry.
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