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.
Speaking of that, I wonder how the YEC crowd explains the magnetic striping of the Earth's ocean floors.
You speak of evidence, yet there is none to show a change of species, to support the idea of ‘evolution’. None.
You say that you can believe in a small miracle of non-burning children, yet decide that God can’t possibly have created the Universe in 6 days. I guess He’s just not big enough to do that?
Unless you are like a child, you cannot enter the kingdom of God (very probably paraphrased, yet accurate). To me that means trusting and believing in God and His Word, His promises.
Yep Lord, thanks for this salvation thingy, but I’ll figure your creation out all by myself, because I just can’t believe that what you said in the Bible is quite true and up to snuff. That is an evolution-supporters view.
Not so much. St. Paul was most likely responding to various doctrinal disputes spawned by those who insisted that they had a "superior" understanding of Christ and his message because of "personal divine revelations" (hence the use of "personal knowledge"). The use of gnosos may very well be a specific slap at the "gnostic" Jewish/Christian sects merging at that time (that after Paul became a significant heresy in Christianity).
In either case, the verse is far more likely to refer to those warping the message of Christ based on personal testimony and/or claims of divine revelations, as opposed to the message of Christ as delivered by his disciples. One my even say that it is warning against supplanting Christ's message with what we want it to say (particularly ironic, considering how many folks on this thread are ready to "massage" the scriptures to suit their own suppositions...).
His discussion of how you need to believe this “science” to protect your faith from the enemy is interesting.
My faith is not threatened one tick by my sceptically about the literal truth of this one Bible story.
It is not necessary, IMO, to assume the “days” of Genesis refer to 24 hour periods.
But it makes Exodus 20:11 or 31:17 seem silly if you don't.
Or to decide that God is incapable of using the evolutionary process as part of his Creation.
Then how do you deal with the plants yielding "according to its kind" (Ge 1:11) and birds and fish reproducing "according to their own kind" (v20,21) and "cattle and creeping beast according to the own kind." (v24,25). Evolution says that one critter must produce another critter of a different kind.
It would probably be pearls before swine to talk about man as a special creation rather than finding a common ancestor with an ape. (v27)
Or, FTM, that the days must all be of the same length.
Good luck explaining "day" three plants growing for eons without sunlight which arrived on "day" four.
I submit that those who have zero problems profaning Scripture to somehow make it compatible with atheistic evolution are exactly who Peter was talking about in 2 Peter 3:5
According to the YEC-ees your tagline means that when Martin Luther King, Jr. said "I dream of a day when a man is judged by the content of his character" he clearly meant that he was looking forward to a single literal 24 hour period in all of history when character matters more than color for judging one single man.
That is a silly argument, because the narrative doesn't read "one day ____ happened and the next day ____ happened" what is there is a numbering of days, and in Hebrew grammar, when numbering a day, its a literal day. Then you have "evening and morning the ___ day" which for even the most dense reader should be obvious that we are talking a literal day.
Even those who wish to compromise are going to have a difficult time explaining how photosynthesis works for "eons" before the sun and moon were created.
Why do folks assume that it’s OK to mock someone for their belief in Creation.
They mock in fear that the Creationist might be right. An evolutionist, by definition, is one who refuses to submit themselves to the Authority of Scripture. The natural man is in enmity with God. Our LORD said that they will hate Christians because they hated God first. It shouldn't be a surprise.
So it is not so much that creationists are WRONG - it is that they are absolutely USELESS.
Here, I will provide you a space where you can show the achievements that advance "discovery and useful application" from the Evolutionists' world view. >>> __ <<<<"
I'm pretty sure that you will have plenty of room.
Funny you'd say that. Not all days have an "evening and morning" were the nth day.
so what is your point?
I daily use Darwin's theory in screening candidates for molecular therapeutics amid several closely related species. Being able to accurately predict human reactions based upon the reaction in several evolutionary distinct model species is essential.
Being able to explain and predict facts is the hallmark of any useful theory - and evolution has it in spades. Useful application is a nice bonus.
Creationism meanwhile is still of no practical use in terms of discovery or useful application.
There is a reason why Biologists hired to produce results learn and know and use Darwin's theory - there is a reason why Geologists hired to produce results learn and know about the long ages of the Earth - etc, etc.
It is not so much that creationists are WRONG - it is that creationism is absolutely USELESS.
It is not so much that a scientific model is CORRECT - it is that it is of USE.
Useful application of Darwin’s theory is also used in screening BETWEEN human populations.
How do you explain human variations?
How do you explain all terrestrial modern species descended from all those that could fit on a boat of known dimensions within the last few thousand years without reference to Darwin’s theory?
How do you explain microbial resistance to novel antibiotics without reference to Darwin’s theory?
Do you think taking the same flu shot every year is going to be effective?
How do you explain why not without reference to Darwin’s theory?
Do you think no explanation is necessary?
Well DUH! The Earth was flat during the flood *eye roll*
If the mountains and oceans were leveled off there would be enough water to cover it to a depth of two miles. There was water twenty feet over the tallest mountain.
Psalms 104:5-9 The mountains ascend, and the plains descend into the place which thou hast founded for them.
The thing is, Materialists "eye-roll" because YEC say the whole world was covered in water over the tallest mountain - then we show you marine fossils found at the peak of the world's tallest mountains. Then in blinding hypocrisy and irony, the uniformitarian Materialist then talks quite seriously about how he has no problem with Mt Everest being below the surface of today's ocean and miraculously rising over five miles upwards not disturbing the fragile marine fossils at all during the process, and all the while not even the slightest bit of erosion took place.
...and without the slightest bit of plausible evidence...
Wonderfully succinct.
dartuser ~ How so? The criteria relates to the length of time for the word "yom" in the Genesis text.
Each of the first 6 days has closure, a passage that definitively ends that day:
Genesis 1:5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.The seventh day doesn't have the same ending statement. The only closure is God ended His work and rested. Judging from the state of the world, one could argue that He's still resting.Genesis 1:8 And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.
Genesis 1:13 And the evening and the morning were the third day.
Genesis 1:19 And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.
Genesis 1:23 And the evening and the morning were the fifth day.
Genesis 1:31 And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.
The Theophilus ~ That is a silly argument, because the narrative doesn't read "one day ____ happened and the next day ____ happened" what is there is a numbering of days, and in Hebrew grammar, when numbering a day, its a literal day. Then you have "evening and morning the ___ day" which for even the most dense reader should be obvious that we are talking a literal day.
That is a silly reply given that anyone familiar with English grammar knows that the article "a" precedes a single event or item: a boy refers to a single male child, for example.
Everyone knows that.
Therefore MLK, Jr must have meant one single day and one single individual man.
How do you explain human variations?
The same way Gregor Mendel (a YE creationist) considered the "father of modern genetics" did.
How do you explain all terrestrial modern species descended from all those that could fit on a boat of known dimensions within the last few thousand years without reference to Darwin’s theory?
Its easier to prove that a pair of dogs containing all the genetic material to spawn variations of dogs, wolves and coyotes then it is to say that a pair of horses spawned a poodle. The Scriptures say that each reproduced after its own kind, Evolutionists claim, without evidence, that one kind begets another. Whatever the scope of "kind" is, I'm pretty sure that a bird doesn't eventually spawn an elephant, thus no two coyotes, wolves and dingos were needed, just a pair of dogs that God led to the ark.
How do you explain microbial resistance to novel antibiotics without reference to Darwin’s theory?
You must not understand Evolution if you think that a loss of genetic information is evolving up. Microbial resistance has been found to be, simplistically speaking, a matter of the organism losing information and natural selection, not generating new and improved behavior. Neo Darwinism, which is what you are implying, has been disproved by evolutionary biologists and mathematicians back during the Wistar Symposium in 1967. The math doesn't support the theory at all. The result of the conference was to make a whole bunch of post-neo-Darwinists.
Do you think taking the same flu shot every year is going to be effective?
Again, if you believe that, you don't understand the various theories of evolution because none of them explain the difference in a flu bug from year to the next.
Among many of the wild claims of evolution is that there is this theory about "beneficial mutations" arising randomly that eventually will transform the virus into something other than a virus - like a squid.
How immune systems operate is where the antibodies can detect a certain appearance of virus proteins whereas a random mutation, while it conveys no new ability to the virus (as evolution requires), it does serve to mask the virus from being detected. This is nothing more than application of observable natural selection - NOT evolution.
Do you think no explanation is necessary?
I still say that thinking about it in evolutionary terms is wasteful. That is why it took so long for scientists to find a cure for the Spanish Flue in the early 20th century - the researchers were constantly applying evolutionary thought and constantly failing while millions were dying.
It is without dispute that the greatest contribution of Evolution to modern man is the application and practice of Eugenics, certainly not a treasured gift.
See post #135.
Plants do not need the sun to survive.
They need light
Light happened on the first day:
Genesis 11 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
Wow. Just wow. Mountains don’t erode? Fossils totally surrounded by and make of rock are fragile? The earth doesn’t move during earthquakes?
Impressive.
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