Friday, June 17, 2005

Watch Out for Dust!

Once again, Esteemed Reader, we find ourselves discussing the dubiously interesting validity of evolution, and this time in earnest. To begin, however, I must comment that no one has yet tried to countermand the errant comment by an evolutionist from the last column, “Getting My Facts Straight.” So, feel free to go to my site (once again, www.reasonandlogic.blogspot.com) to leave a comment- though I’ll not be able to post this column nor the next few for a few days. Long story, won’t bore you.
In any case, one of the most prevalent arguments and theories of evolutionists is that the earth that we live on is really old- I believe that the current theory is that it’s around 4.6 billion- or 4,600,000,000- years old.
Now, the reader must ask themselves- why would evolutionists propose, even insist, such an outrageous number? That’s a simple enough answer. Evolution would take time, and a lot of it. For the random forming of a cell, lots of chance must be allowed, and for this chance to be allowed, lots of time must be allowed also. The time it would take for a unicellular species to change- at a rate so slow we don’t even see it at all today- into a more complex animal- let’s say, a sponge- would be stupendous. And this is all based on the assumption that said evolution could even take place- a dubious proposition at best.
So, it should strike you as humorous that when evolutionists need time, they make it up. Seriously, that was the thinking process behind this “age of the earth is 4.6 billion years” crap. This is 100% speculation, and has absolutely no evidence backing it whatsoever.
Now, would it surprise you that there’s plenty of evidence contradictory to this claim?
Since I’m writing it and bringing it up, it shouldn’t.
All right, here’s the facts, folks:
My first piece of inflammatory evidence is the absence of “moon dust.” Although most people do not know it, one of the reasons so much money was spent to send a rocket to the moon was to see how thick the dust was on its surface!
Evolutionists had long held to the fact (as we do) that the earth and moon are about the same age. It is believed, by many, that the earth and its moon are billions of years old. If that were true, the moon would by now have built up a 20-60 mile [32 to 97 km] layer of dust on it!
In *Isaac Asimov’s first published essay (1958), he wrote:
" . . I get a picture, therefore, of the first spaceship [to the moon], picking out a nice level place for landing purposes, coming slowly downward tail-first and sinking majestically out of sight."—*Isaac Asimov, Asimov on Science: A Thirty-Year Retrospective (1989), xvi-xvii.
In the 1950s, *R.A. Lyttleton, a highly respected astronomer, said this:
"The lunar surface is exposed to direct sunlight, and strong ultraviolet light and X-rays [from the sun] can destroy the surface layers of exposed rock and reduce them to dust at the rate of a few ten-thousandths of an inch per year. But even this minute amount could, during the age of the moon, be sufficient to form a layer over it several miles deep."—*R.A. Lyttleton, quoted in R. Wysong, Creation-Evolution Controversy, p. 175.
In 5 to 10 billion years, 3 or 4/10,000ths of an inch per year would produce 20-60 miles [32-97 km] of dust. In view of this, our men at NASA were afraid to send men to the moon. Landing there, they would be buried in dust and quickly suffocate! So NASA first sent an unmanned lander to its surface, which made the surprising discovery that there was hardly any dust on the moon! In spite of that discovery, Neil Armstrong was decidedly worried about this dust problem as his March 1970 flight in Apollo 11 neared. He feared his lunar lander would sink deeply into it and he and Edwin Aldrin would perish. But because the moon is young, they had no problem. There is not over 2 or 3 inches [5.08 or 7.62 cm] of dust on its surface! That is the amount one would expect if the moon were about 6000-8000 years old.
*Dr. Lyttleton’s facts were correct; solar radiation does indeed turn the moon rocks into dust. With only a few inches of dust, the moon cannot be older than a few thousand years.
It is significant that studies on the moon have shown that only 1/60th of the one- or two-inch dust layer on the moon originated from outer space. This has been corroborated by still more recent measurements of the influx rate of dust on the moon, which also do not support an old moon.
In case that’s not enough for you- which it shouldn’t be- another intriguing aspect of this deal’s with the earth’s magnetic field. As you probably know- at the risk of sounding repetitious- the earth has a magnetic field. Without it, we could not use compasses to identify the direction of magnetic north (which is close to the North Pole). Dr. Thomas G. Barnes, a physics teacher at the University of Texas, has authored a widely used college textbook on electricity and magnetism. Working with data collected over the past 135 years, he has pointed out that earth’s magnetic field is gradually decaying. Indeed, he has shown that this magnetic field is decreasing exponentially, according to a decay law similar to the decay of radioactive substances.
In 1835 the German physicist, K.F. Gauss, made the first measurement of the earth’s magnetic dipole moment, that is, the strength of earth’s internal magnet. Additional evaluations have been carried out every decade or so since then. Since 1835, global magnetism has decreased 14 percent!
On the basis of facts obtained from 1835 to 1965, this magnetic field appears to have a half-life of 1400 years. On this basis, even 7000 years ago, the earth would have had a magnetic field 32 times stronger than it now has. Just 20,000 years ago, enough Joule heat would have been generated to liquefy the earth. One million years ago the earth would have had greater magnetism than all objects in the universe, and it would have vaporized! It would appear that the earth could not be over 6000 or 7000 years old. (On the accompanying graph, beyond the point where the curve becomes vertical, our planet would have had the magnetosphere power of a magnetic star!)
"The over-all intensity of the field is declining at a rate of 26 nanoteslas per year . . If the rate of decline were to continue steadily, the field strength would reach zero in 1,200 years."—*"Magnetic Field Declining," Science News, June 28, 1980.
"In the next two millennia, if the present rate of decay is sustained, the dipole component of the [earth’s magnetic] field should reach zero."—*Scientific American, December 1989.
This magnetic decay process is not a local process, such as one would find in uranium, but worldwide; it affects the entire earth. It has been accurately measured for over 150 years, and is not subject to environmental changes since it is generated deep in the earth’s interior.
If any fundamental planetary process ought to be a reliable indicator of the earth’s age, it should be our earth’s magnetic field—and it indicates an upper limit of decidedly less than 10,000 years for the age of the earth.
Most of the factors described above would apply to the age of the earth, which appears to be decidedly less than 10,000 years.
Most of the following items of evidence would apply to the length of time since the Flood, which evidence indicates may have occurred about 4350 years ago.Hopefully, this still isn’t enough for you. I’m not into trying to brainwash people with only two facts, you know. So, please and by all means, attempt to research this stuff yourself. Preferably, you’ll try the good web site for such endeavors, which I again give credit to for the information: www.evolution-facts.org.