Piltdown Superman

In " Extrasolar Planets Thwart Cosmic Evolution ", we looked at three articles by astrophysicist Dr. Jason Lisle. He discussed the history of exoplanets, the methods used for detection, how astronomers know their composition, and more. Those planets are within our own galaxy. Detecting them is fascinating enough, but prepare to be impressed again because there is a strong possibility that an exoplanet outside our galaxy has been found. Those fun-loving astronomers have given it the whimsical name of M51-ULS-1b. This discovery is quite interesting. X-ray: NASA /CXC/SAO/R. DiStefano, et al.; Optical: NASA/ESA/STScI/Grendler; Illustration: NASA/CXC/M.Weiss (Usage does not imply endorsement of site contents) This is a bigly-huge distance away, and the detection is reminiscent of that used for discovering the first exoplanets (this method may lead to further discoveries out there, thataway). In both cases, planets are around massive objects, but the latest one has quite a bit happ

The other day, Stormie Waters and I were making chin music with Rusty Swingset, the supervisor out at the Darwin Ranch. We must have caught him in a contemplative mood because he was admitting that evolution has a wagon train-load of challenges. Then Rusty's lady friend Jacqueline Hyde joined us. She and Stormie kept Rusty and I from having another discussion about those "challenges". Jackie said that all the other detailed sciency things aside, she saw some basic hurdles that evolution would have to clear — if it were a sprinter. Unsplash / Interactive Sports Even though Rusty was in a thoughtful mood, Jackie's remarks made him a mite uncomfortable. The Big Bang was supposed to be the start of everything, cosmic evolution, things popping into existence and all that. It violates fundamental laws of science, and she was sorry to say that when scientists say laws were different back then, that's nonsense: "You can put 'em in the oven, but that don't ma

Human nature being what it is, after people learned that planets orbited the sun and that the stars are also miniature suns, they would have wondered if those distant suns had their own planets. In the 1990s, the first extrasolar planets (exoplanets) were discovered. Seeing distant objects on Earth is difficult enough, and the problem is much greater with such huge distances. People see pictures of planets with romantic names like TOI-1231 b, but such detail has never been observed — those pictures are artists' renderings. NASA / JPL-Caltech / R. Hurt (SSC-Caltech) (Usage does not imply endorsement of site contents) I can't help but wonder if God built intellectual surprises into creation that would be discovered as we advanced in science. If you study on it a spell, you might realize that as scientists learn more about the world and the universe, they become more arrogant. Scientism and materialism become supreme, and atheism is on the rise while logic is being twisted beyond

Plate spinning can be an interesting analogy for the balance of the solar system. Have you ever seen people twirl plates on thin sticks at carnivals and other entertainment venues? It has been around in various forms for a mighty long time. Sure, sometimes the plates may be tweaked for better results or even rigged, but the performer selects the right style of plate for the act. After getting set up, the plate spins nicely before wobbling, and it eventually falls. Credit: Wikimedia Commons /  אנדר-ויק  ( CC BY-SA 3.0 ) At creation, God put the universe in balance. The outer planets of our solar system contribute to the balance of the rest , but everything is running down. This balance, like everything else, does not improve over time. Even though fine-tuned processes keep the overall balance intact, our universe quietly transforms over time. The orbits of Earth, our moon, the solar system planets and their moons, and even the burn of the sun and other stars are constantly changing. The

Many people, including Christians, erroneously believe that the age of the earth has been conclusively proven to be about 4-1/2 billion years old. Although serious mathematics is involved, the essence of the method is rather simple. Chip away a rocky outcropping and take a sample to the lab and ask them nicely (as well as paying a fee) for them to tell you its age. From there, you know the age of the earth. Just kidding, such a thing does not happen. Assembled and modified with components from Clker clipart The unstable radioactive element and the stable isotope in a rock are measured. The unstable decays and leaves the stable. Rate of decay and other factors are calculated to give the number of years. But that rock that you chipped away? Not happening, at least regarding Earth's age. Secularists and their churchian allies believe that rocks on the earth are not reliable indicators, so they assume meteorites are more pure, and calculate from those . There are other assumptions to

It has been discovered that Titan, the largest moon of Saturn, is receding from that nice planet much faster than cosmic evolutionists expect. Moons recede. They do that. However, the rate at which Titan lit a shuck out of there causes considerable consternation. Titan with clouds image credit: NASA / JPL / University of Arizona (Usage does not imply endorsement of site contents) Indeed, secular scientists are constantly denying evidence for a young solar system ( see " Saturn Scientists Dodge Age Issues " .) None of the secular ideas for the formation of the solar system are good, so the best of the worst is the nebular hypothesis. Essentially, everything formed at the same time (never mind that Venus and Uranus defy the edict had have retrograde rotations, as well as some moons). Earth's moon is receding, and using uniform assumptions against secularists, it would have been impossibly close to Earth in the past. Titan would have needed to form in a different p

Not too long ago, we saw a ridiculous rescuing device for the failed Big Bang in the idea of a cosmic bubble . A more long-standing rescuing device is dark matter , and even some creationists believe it exists. However, there is still no evidence for it, and another attempt to rescue the rescuing device has failed. Supposed dark matter ring in galaxy cluster Cl 0024+17 Source:  NASA , ESA, M.J. Jee and H. Ford (Johns Hopkins University) (usage does not imply endorsement of site contents) Neutrinos are elusive because they have very little mass and are electrically neutral. Big Bang enthusiasts have tried to associate neutrinos with their concept, and then came up with sterile neutrinos  — "When you want to keep neutrinos as pets, to you get them fixed, Cowboy Bob?" Good luck finding a physicist to perform the surgery. Anyway, scientists are squabbling about evidence, and some are saying there isn't any. Others are saying that there is so evidence. Sorry to break it to

We have seen many times that the Big Bang that anti-creationists know and love is not anywhere near the original. It got its name because of the alleged explosion way back when . Evidence does not fit observed data, and the Big Bang has been Frankensteined yet again. Image credits:  NASA, ESA, Hubble Heritage Team; Reprocessed by  Maksim Kakitsev  ( CC BY-NC 2.0 ) (Usage does not imply endorsement of site contents by anyone, anywhere) A recent serious problem for the Big Bang speculations is the Hubble constant . There are conflicting results, and this should not be so if the science was valid. What's a secularist to do? Use the tried-and-true complex scientific method of Making Things Up™. In this case, float the idea that we live in a cosmic bubble that is different from the rest of the universe. Of course, there is no observational support, but is can be used as a rescuing device to keep the naturalistic narrative going. Cosmic evolution and biological evolution can'

There is a concept in cosmology that all matter is evenly dispersed throughout the universe. This idea is used to support the Big Bang, a concept that has been reworked and cobbled for decades because it is the best of the failed secular theories . However, the cosmological principle  is having difficulties. Seven-Year Microwave Sky image credit:  NASA / WMAP Science Team (Usage does not imply endorsement of site contents) It appears that matter is distributed throughout the universe, and the universe is expanding. A recent study of galaxy clusters, which could not be done before orbiting telescopes, detected that these galaxies emitted large amounts of X-rays. This study indicates that the universe is not isotropic  (uniform in all directions), which is a serious problem for cosmology and cosmogony if this study pans out. Since secularists are committed to atheistic materialism, cosmologists will probably not let evidence interfere with the cosmic evolution narrative, and certa

In " Climate Change Factors Part 1 ", we saw that people were on the prod, blaming humans for global warming or "anthropogenic climate change". But the whole thing is not "settled science" because there are many factors that still need to be considered. Today, we have a severe case of one thing leading to another, beginning with the sun. Sunspots image credit: SOHO , the EIT Consortium , and the MDI Team , but I found it here (Usage does not imply endorsement of site contents) That bright hot thing in the sky up there, thataway — "Don't be looking right at it, ya idjit! It'll wreck your eyes!" Oh, I know not to look at the sun without proper eye protection. Anyway, the greater light that God made to rule the day (Gen. 1:16) is obviously a major component in global warming. It does warm this globe and others. What happens from there is a complicated sequence of events that is being considered. Sunspots are less active now, and

Many of us in the Northern Hemisphere began stargazing by finding the Big Dipper (or Plough) and using the stars as pointers, and the two on the end of the "bowl" would point to Polaris , the North Star. This was also the beginning of the Little Dipper's handle. While Polaris seems fixed in the sky, it is not that way in the long run. Credit: Flickr / DSS / Giuseppe Donatiello (public domain) At one time, the North Star was Thuban, but that changed because of the precession of the Earth. Ever spin a toy top? It wobbles, and if you could have a laser pointer attached to the top, you might see it draw circles on the ceiling. The same thing happens with the earth, but since it is much larger, the precession takes a mighty long time and would take about 26,000 years to complete one cycle. Polaris is also a Cepheid variable , a kind of star that changes its intensity. (The name came from a star in the constellation Cepheus, which was the first of this kind of variabl

Scientists of the biblical creation persuasion are able to use the same evidence that is available to everyone. That is, there is no such thing as "their" evidence and "our" evidence, it is a matter of interpretations of facts based on worldviews. Scientists committed to naturalism often fail in matters of deep time and minerals-to-mycologist evolution. Take the oceanic strontium ratios as another example. Credit: Freeimages /  Matt Sullivan Creationists use secular materials and timescales, but only for points of reference and communication purposes. When checking the rise of the sea levels over millions of Darwin years, there is a change in the strontium isotope ratios. Using a creation science Genesis Flood model (and yes, despite the whining of atheopath sidewinders , there are creation scientists), it can be clearly seen that strontium ratios and other factors support the Genesis Flood. The facts do not support secular paradigms very well. Using the s

Secular scientists have been stunned — stunned , I tell you — when C-14 has been found in diverse items (including diamonds) that they claim are millions of years old. For a mighty long time, their presuppositions prevented them from bothering to test these things for radiocarbon. Credit: GoodFreePhotos / Thorn Yang I'll allow that there are some things we simply know and do not feel a need to check; I know that when Basement Cat goes down the steps, she will not float to the ceiling because she's not equipped to defy gravity. When it comes to the age of the earth and things in it, believers in deep time do not actually know the facts (and some question those assumptions ). It is inferred, then they presuppose that previous assumptions are correct and that oil, diamonds, and so forth cannot have radiocarbon in them. But they do. That is because the earth is not billions of years old, and the best explanation can be backtracked to the Genesis Flood. Circle the wagons!

Great news for creationists, bad for believers in current cosmic evolution ideas. A paper was published that examined galaxies and their associations with quasars. This gets into some deep astronomy and mathematics, such as redshift and whether or not the association is random. Galaxy Cluster, Quasar 3C 186 image credits: NASA /CXC/SAO/A.Siemiginowska et al. Optical: AURA/Gemini Obs. (Usage does not imply endorsement of site contents) "This is all very interesting, but what is a quasar, Cowboy Bob?" Glad you asked. Like a social media relationship status, it's complicated. When first detected, astronomers were puzzled and decided to call them  quasi-stellar  objects, shortened to quasars.  Has a catchy sound do it. They are very bright and contain a great deal of energy, and seem to be the products of black holes at the cores of galaxies. Or are they something else? It took a mighty long time to get a handle on quasars, and that has changed. The paper is stron

We have examined radiometric dating on this site many times, and the article linked below provides some information that is inconvenient for those who believe in deep time. The age of the earth is calculated this way by testing meteorites , not rocks on Earth. However, the dating methods are unreliable. Assembled with graphics from Openclipart It should raise the suspicions of almost anyone that there are numerous dating methods used on rocks. This is because they are not consistent and have results that vary wildly with one another, and there are numerous assumptions that must be made . Creation scientists have done their own calculations and shown how secular systems are flawed. Further, a Genesis Flood model is a far better fit for the facts. Have you ever pulled apart a large mass of taffy and watched it break into two approximately equal masses? This is an illustration of what happens in the subatomic world when a 238 U or 235 U atom undergoes splitting, or fission. Nuclea

Let the trumpeters trumpet and the drummers drum, get a sheet cake and invite your friends, exoplanet ToI 700d may be earth-like. We have heard that kind of thing before, then the additional information drops in. If I recollect rightly, there was news about Earth's twin, but only if Earth was a ball of magma. Still, the newly-discovered planet is in the "habitable zone", so it's got that going for it. Credit:  NASA 's Goddard Space Flight Center TESS found it. No, not the woman that works in the mail room. It's NASA's own Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, and ToI is used to denote  Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite Object of Interest . An astronomer may want to switch me with snakes for this, but I'm skeptical because observations are limited and conclusions are inferred. Indeed, some think that the outer reaches of our own solar system may be  home to a small black hole , others think a  massive planet  is out there. There are plenty o

The way most people understand science is often called operational  science, dealing with things in the present. This is contrasted with historical  (forensic) science, which uses things found in the present in an attempt to reconstruct the past. Which do you think applies to patterns in meteorites? Widmanstätten pattern in Gibeon meteorite credit: Flickr / James St. John  ( CC by 2.0 ) By the way, the distinction between these two types of science was not  "made up by YECs" as some anti-creationists asseverate. The distinction has been around for quite a few years . There is something called a  Widmanstätten pattern that is found in iron-nickel meteorites. Let's engage our think bones for a few moments. What do you have? A meteorite with a pattern. When does it exist? In the present, like us. How do those patterns with the long name form? That can be determined by other metals that have been heated and then cooled. Do these pattern in meteorites take millions o

Secular astronomers and cosmologists are finding more problems with their deep time paradigm, so once again they have to trot out rescuing devices. Their own assumptions are working against them. According to expectations from the current Big Bang model, huge galaxies should not exist. But there they are. Derivative from  The Passion of Creation by Leonid Pasternak, 1880s Once again, the secular version of the history of the universe has to be rewritten. Sure, the rescuing devices look like they may work, but circular reasoning is involved; these "explanations" refute themselves. Muy grande galaxies exist before stars had time to form, explode, and seed the universe with stuff to make the universe (and ultimately, you and me) exist. All varieties of evolutionists, whether cosmic, biological, or geological, essentially believe in luck in the cosmic throws of the dice. When science is misused used to defy recent creation, the problems keep on piling up. This is God'

One of the numerous facts used by biblical creationists that indicates a young earth is the decay of the magnetic field . Secular owlhoots know that this has been happening, but they try to salvage their deep time beliefs with assorted and unprovable concepts. They also try to wave it off as unimportant. Image credit:  NASA (Usage does not imply endorsement of site contents) After all, it's been there for billions of years, they think, and are apparatchiks for the Darwin Party. If the Bearded Buddha needs huge amounts of time, they'll find it for him, you betcha! Some are implying that it will be somewhat inconvenient, but ignore other important facts. Also, they have their uniformitarian paradigm (slow and gradual processes), assuming  that the decay rate will not increase later. Our Creator put that magnetic field up there to take care of this here planet that we call home. Earth’s magnetic field is vital for life, but it is decaying. To keep it going billions of yea

You may be surprised to learn that the Big Bang model for the origin of the universe began way back in the 1920s and has been modified numerous times since then. However, the Big Bang simply does not work, so older ideas are being retooled, and new ones are being considered and slipped through the secular torpedo nets. Credit: Pixabay / Johnson Martin Astronomer Fred Hoyle came up with the title Big Bang out of derision. He and other scientists did not like the idea of the universe having a beginning, and preferred the even less scientific but predominant steady state concept. Since the Big Bang has been Frankensteined with parts added on through the years in futile attempts to keep it alive, some scientists are dreaming up other ideas to cling to their cosmic evolution ideas. They will not admit that the facts support  what the Bible said all along: God created. There is definitely no valid reason for professing Christians to use this philosophy as an add-on. A recent New Sc