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hippy4christ
Skeptic Friend
193 Posts |
 Posted - 10/29/2003 : 13:18:40
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Hello all,
It's been a while. I did some more research on the magnetic field decay theory, I found this article: www.icr.org, Search for 'magnetic field decay,' and read article 4. I haven't read any sources quoted in the article, but I'll look for them. Let me know what you think.
Hippy
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Faith is believing what you are told, whether it's by a priest or a scientist. A person's scientific beliefs are ones based on personal observation and experimentation.
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furshur
SFN Regular
USA
1536 Posts |
Posted - 10/29/2003 : 14:13:16 [Permalink]
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Here we go again pure bunk information from the ICR. Pseudo-science from Pseudo-scientists. This has been addressed many times over the years. Below is some information on the 'decaying magnetic field'.
quote:
The Barnes/Humphreys hypothesis does not stand up to analysis. Barnes is correct that the dipole element of the magnetic field has indeed decreased in strength since the 19th century. However, as geologist Brent Dalrymple points out, "Barnes completely neglects the nondipole field. The same observatory measurements that show that the dipole moment has decreased since the early 1800's also show that this decrease has almost been completely balanced by an increase in the strength of the total observed field which has remained almost constant." (Dalrymple, "Can Earth Be Dated from its Magnetic Field?", Menlo Park, CA, 1992)
Barnes also presents no evidence whatever to support his assertion that the magnetic field has been decaying exponentially, or that it becomes progressively stronger in the past. And, in fact, there is no need to speculate on what the strength of the earth's magnetic field was in the past, since we have a way to directly measure it. Metallic particles such as iron are partially magnetized by the earth's magnetic field and will line themselves up with the magnetic poles. By examining these particles, we can determine the strength of the magnetic field. And such examination shows that the earth's magnetic field has not been decaying steadily. Clay pottery and other archeological finds which date to about 6,500 years ago indicate a magnetic field that was about 20% weaker than today, while artifacts from just 3,000 years ago show magnetic fields that are 45% higher than today. Thus, rather than decreasing steadily since the time of creation, the earth's magnetic field has fluctuated, weaker at some times and stronger at others.
Lying or distorting the facts to further the Creationts viewpoint is eventually going to back fire. At least I hope it would.
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ktesibios
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505 Posts |
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Dr. Mabuse
Septic Fiend
Sweden
9688 Posts |
Posted - 10/29/2003 : 23:44:34 [Permalink]
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Here's the link
http://www.icr.org/pubs/imp/imp-242.htm
Poor suckers... They can't even get their terminology right.
They are showing a graph of an inverse proportional function y=k(1/x)+m and say "Then it began a slowly accelerating decrease. By about 1000 A.D., the decrease was nearly as fast as it is today."
The function they are describing sounds more like y=m-k(x^1.5)
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hippy4christ
Skeptic Friend
193 Posts |
Posted - 10/30/2003 : 14:03:06 [Permalink]
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Hi
Actually, the link I was reffering to was http://www.icr.org/pubs/imp/imp-122.htm
Barnes states that the paleomagnetic readings come from the nondipole field, while the dipole field are used to measure the age of the Earth. Either way, it seems that most of the documents quoted in the article come from science journals. I live in a small town, is there any way to get copies of these journals over the Web?
The main issue of the article seems to be the source of the power of the magnetic field. Let me know if any of the following statements are untrue:
a) electromagnetism is caused by electricity running through iron.
b) in every exchange of energy, some of that energy dissipates.
c) the Earth's magnetic field is caused by electricity running through
the nickel and iron core.
d) electricity does not spontaneously occur
If all this is true, then either the field will eventually decay due to the exchange of energy, or there is a source of power for the core. Dalrymple hypothesizes a dynamo that is supplying energy for the core, caused by the fluid iron in the core churning against itself and creating magnetism. Why hasn't this churning also slowed down? If the churning was simply higher hundreds of millions of years ago, what affect did this have on life? What evidence is there for the outer core to be fluid and moving?
Hippy |
Faith is believing what you are told, whether it's by a priest or a scientist. A person's scientific beliefs are ones based on personal observation and experimentation.
Lists of Logical Fallacies |
| Edited by - hippy4christ on 10/30/2003 14:25:16 |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 10/30/2003 : 14:45:54 [Permalink]
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(a) is false, through omission. Electromagnetism "is caused by" electrons moving through anything. Iron is not necessary. Electrons moving through iron will generate magnetic fields (and vice-versa), so it's not false enough to break down the argument.
What is flawed here is the idea that the dynamo requires a continual re-supply of external energy to have gone on this long. As far as I know, it was supplied with plenty of energy some 4.5 billion years ago, just like the outside of the Earth, which is also still spinning and very slowly "winding down."
The Earth's core will eventually solidify. The dynamo will eventually quit. But there's a heck of a lot of angular momentum which must be bled off, and it doesn't look like that'll happen anytime soon. |
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Dr. Mabuse
Septic Fiend
Sweden
9688 Posts |
Posted - 10/30/2003 : 16:22:14 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Dr. Mabuse
They are showing a graph of an inverse proportional function y=k(1/x)+m and say "Then it began a slowly accelerating decrease. By about 1000 A.D., the decrease was nearly as fast as it is today."
The function they are describing sounds more like y=m-k(x^1.5)
My girlfriend informs me that last function is wrong... it should read something like y=m-k(ln(x))
My only excuse is that I haven't studied math for over 15 years. I need to brush up on integrals and such. |
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Dr. Mabuse
Septic Fiend
Sweden
9688 Posts |
Posted - 10/31/2003 : 11:08:35 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by hippy4christ
The main issue of the article seems to be the source of the power of the magnetic field. Let me know if any of the following statements are untrue:
a) electromagnetism is caused by electricity running through iron.
quote:
Dave W. writes:(a) is false, through omission. Electromagnetism "is caused by" electrons moving through anything. Iron is not necessary. Electrons moving through iron will generate magnetic fields (and vice-versa), so it's not false enough to break down the argument.
Actually anything that moves, particle or otherwise, with an electric charge creates a magnetic field. No matter if it's an electron, or positron, proton, or an alpha-particle, or a running cat with it's fur standing straight up because it's statically charged.
quote:
b) in every exchange of energy, some of that energy dissipates.
The energy never vanish, just goes somewhere else.
quote:
c) the Earth's magnetic field is caused by electricity running through the nickel and iron core.
The core consists of an inner, solid core and a liquid outer core. The magnetic field is generated by the liquid part. If you heat an iron magnet above 770 degrees Celcius it will loose most of its magnetism. Iron above that temperature can not be extensively magnetized. This is why I don't fully understand what Creationists are talking about when they refer to dipole magnetic fields. Can someone please explain this to me?
quote:
d) electricity does not spontaneously occur
No it doesn't. Changes in magnetic fields generate electricity, which is electrically charged particles moving. And moving electric charges create magnetic fields. There is an intricate interaction between the two.
quote:
If all this is true, then either the field will eventually decay due to the exchange of energy, or there is a source of power for the core.
I'd say a little bit of both. Radioactive decay of various isotopes supply heat. And slowly some of the liquid iron attach itself to the inner core, solidifying. There is a difference in the energy-level between liquid and solid form, so when liquid iron solidifies it releases energy to its surrounding. This helps to keep the temperature up in the core.
quote:
If the churning was simply higher hundreds of millions of years ago, what affect did this have on life?
Not much. There are microorganisms that navigate after magnetic fields. I've seen research on TV about migrating birds might use some kind of internal compass, but I don't recall the conclusion of the study. I think it was that they do, but I'm not sure.
quote:
What evidence is there for the outer core to be fluid and moving?
Doppler shift in seismic waves created on one side of Earth, and detected on the opposite side. And reflection of the same seismic waves to other places of Earth. The source of these waves can be either earthquakes or explosive charges detonated for the specific purpose of generating chock waves. |
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furshur
SFN Regular
USA
1536 Posts |
Posted - 10/31/2003 : 11:58:53 [Permalink]
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Here is a link from the NOAA site for FAQs about the Earths magnetic field.
http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/seg/potfld/faqgeom.shtml#q1
Hippy, you may want to skip it because it does not support the ICR's views here is a snippet from the site.
quote:
8b. Is Earth's magnetic field going to reverse?
While we now appear to be in a period of declining magnetic field strength, we cannot state for certain if or when a magnetic reversal will occur. Based on measurements of the Earth's magnetic field taken since about 1850 some paleomagnetists estimate that the dipole moment will decay in about 1,300 years. However, the present dipole moment (a measure of how strong the magnetic field is) is actually higher than it has been for most of the last 50,000 years and the current decline could reverse at any time. Even if Earth's magnetic field is beginning a reversal, it would still take several thousand years to complete a reversal. We expect Earth would still have a magnetic field during a reversal, but it would be weaker than normal with multiple magnetic poles. Radio communication would deteriorate, navigation by magnetic compass would be difficult and migratory animals might have problems.
During the past 100 million years, the reversal rates vary considerably. Recent rock records indicate reversals occurring on time scales of about 200,000 years. The last time the magnetic field reversed was about 750,000 - 780,000 years ago.
This is actually a pretty good site.
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hippy4christ
Skeptic Friend
193 Posts |
Posted - 10/31/2003 : 12:54:18 [Permalink]
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Hi all
furshur, you said:
"Hippy, you may want to skip it because it does not support the ICR's views"
The only side I am on is that of truth. I was raised a Christian, and I was taught to be rational and to "prove all things; hold fast to what is good." I am in the process of examining my faith, but I am not going to abandon it at the first sign of error. I am going to examine the possible error, and then believe in what is more sound and logical.
About the content of the core: There seems to be a lot of assumptions. How is it known what the material makeup of the core is? If I read this right, it seems that seismologists record an explosion or earthquake on one side of the planet, record the seismic activity on the other, feed the data into a computer, and the computer gives them a model. Is this right? If so, were normal seismic movements taken into account? Was a fluid core assumed before or after the measuring? Would large veins of dense or light material have confused the readings?
How accurate is this measuring? I recently read an article about how astronomers found out that their predictions as to the content of a certain solar system were wrong, and they used a method that seemed similar to this. I believe that they measured the wobble of the star and extrapolated how many planets there needed to be to obtain that wobble.
Furshur, I'm pressed for time, so I'll get back to you on that article. But, just wondering, how much do you guys say is accurate in the ICR article?
Hippy |
Faith is believing what you are told, whether it's by a priest or a scientist. A person's scientific beliefs are ones based on personal observation and experimentation.
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furshur
SFN Regular
USA
1536 Posts |
Posted - 10/31/2003 : 15:08:38 [Permalink]
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Hippy, how can you say that you are out for the truth when you do your research on the ICR site. The ICR stands for the Institude for Creation research. They do not hide the bias. I know that you will say science is biased towards an old earth, but that is because of the massive amounts of evidence. If someone were to find an arrow head impaled in a dinosaur bone the person would be the most famous scientist in the world.
I find the article very misleading, if not full of out right lies.
The philosiphy of the site is:
The bible is literally true - now lets go out and prove it. Anything that can remotely point in that direction we will use and anything that counters that we will throw out.
Never mind, this is absurd. I am trying to prove a point with facts and the young earth idea is a proposition that has no factual basis. You will never accept any of my arguments because that would mean that you are feel you are rejected God.
If man and dinosaurs lived together and they died in the same flood don't you think at least once we would find them together? Don't you think once we would find an elephant and a dinosaur in the same fossil bed? How about ANY "modern" mammal with any dinosaur bones. That is all it would take for me to change my mind.
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If I knew then what I know now then I would know more now than I know. |
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moakley
SFN Regular
USA
1888 Posts |
Posted - 10/31/2003 : 15:58:59 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by hippy4christ
The only side I am on is that of truth. I was raised a Christian, and I was taught to be rational and to "prove all things; hold fast to what is good." I am in the process of examining my faith, but I am not going to abandon it at the first sign of error. I am going to examine the possible error, and then believe in what is more sound and logical.
Good luck. It took me about 4 years to realize that faith was an irrational basis upon which to establish a truth of any kind. My approach was similar to yours, I began reading and thinking for myself. To support the absolute truth of the bible meant that I had to ignore/deny an awful lot of evidence. |
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Dr. Mabuse
Septic Fiend
Sweden
9688 Posts |
Posted - 10/31/2003 : 17:24:55 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by hippy4christ
I am going to examine the possible error, and then believe in what is more sound and logical.
That's commendable.
The "Creation Science" community is trying to make you believe there is a conspiracy going on, with over thousands, possibly a million "secular scientists" hiding evidence over a time period of more than a hundred years.
They will also try to convince you that science will deny you faith in God. Which is not true. Science is about the curiosity of man, we want to find out how things works. Leaders of the churches are afraid they will loose influence over you. That's why they are trying to convince you that "creation" science is the only one valid, tieing you up as closely to the Bible as possible.
The Bible is very old, I guess the word science as we know it wasn't even invented back then, when the first lines of Genesis was written.
If God told his prophets (like Jeremiah or anyone of them) that the sun shines through the process of fusion, or even such a basic thing as vacuum, or that stars are at different distances to Earth. Or that the planets are orbiting the sun, and not earth.
How could, or even should, such knowledge be passed from the prophet to the general population, when their general understanding of the world was that it was flat?
There are still many valuable lessons to learned from the Bible, but in matters of science it has been helplessly surpassed by new findings.
quote:
About the content of the core: There seems to be a lot of assumptions. How is it known what the material makeup of the core is? If I read this right, it seems that seismologists record an explosion or earthquake on one side of the planet, record the seismic activity on the other, feed the data into a computer, and the computer gives them a model. Is this right? If so, were normal seismic movements taken into account? Was a fluid core assumed before or after the measuring? Would large veins of dense or light material have confused the readings?
These are all very good questions. But alas... I am not a geologist, so my knowledge is rather limited in this area. I've only touched it when I was studying astronomy. A computer must have been present when collecting and processing data. It wouldn't be humanly possible to handle that amount of data. The program used to analyze the data is programmed with many parameters that is way beyond my knowledge. Normal seismic movements have to be taken in account. As for veins of dense or light material see below:
I'm sure you have seen an ultra-sound examination of an unborn baby on TV... Echocardiogram is an ultra-sound examination of the heart.
The more dense the object that reflect the sound, the higher the energy of the reflected sound. Computers use several receivers to calculate the position the reflection comes from, in 3D.
The idea of examining the inner parts of Earth is the same. There is of course a difference in the instrumentation, but the same principles are applied.
quote:
How accurate is this measuring? I recently read an article about how astronomers found out that their predictions as to the content of a certain solar system were wrong, and they used a method that seemed similar to this.
Yes, and no... there are several important differences. First of all, the speed of the medium. Doppler shift in the atmosphere is easily detected because the speed of sound is only ~330 m/s.
The speed of sound in iron, nickle, and granite is in the range of 4000 to 5000 m/s.
The speed of light is 300000000 m/s.
quote:
I believe that they measured the wobble of the star and extrapolated how many planets there needed to be to obtain that wobble.
Right, that's how it's done. If we assume that the orbits of those planets are fairly circular, each planet will add a sine-wave on the wobble.
* The period of the sine-wave will be equal to the time to complete a single orbit around the star.
* The amplitude of the sine-wave will show the size (weight) of the planet.
If there are several planets, then several sine-waves will be superimposed on the wobble. With our sun, most of our planets would probably give too small wobbles to be detected, but Jupiter and Saturn should show up on really good instruments, if there were aliens on another planet looking at us: One component sine-wave would have a period of ~12years (Jupiter) and the other ~30years (Saturn).
When studying star-wobbles there are a few problems to consider: Look at the time before a complete orbit of Saturn. If we look at the wobble during a shorter period, we can still calculate the period, but the error will be increasingly higher. But planets don't have circular orbits, they are more or less elliptical. This will deform each of the superimposed sine-waves, and make them harder to separate from each other. And it will be hard to determine how great the ellipse is before a complete orbit is done. I think the first extra-solar planet was announced 1995. As time goes by, there will probably be more corrections, on many systems, partly because we will have studied the planets during a longer period of time, and our instrumentation is constantly improving.
quote:
But, just wondering, how much do you guys say is accurate in the ICR article?
I really wish we had a geologist here we could ask. My own knowledge is limited.
(edit: spelling) |
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| Edited by - Dr. Mabuse on 10/31/2003 17:28:55 |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 11/01/2003 : 00:10:41 [Permalink]
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hippy4christ wrote:quote:
But, just wondering, how much do you guys say is accurate in the ICR article?
The entire article, it seems to me, boils down to the following argument (whether we have any geologists to ask or not): "The mainstream argument is lacking in a few places, therefore this less-obviously-flawed argument must be the truth." Such an idea is, of course, ridiculous.
In another manner, the article asks us to believe that every other method of dating the Earth is wrong, based upon one possible way of detecting its age. This is, obviously, ludicrous, since if (for example) four out of five measurements of a thing give approximately the same answer, why should the fifth odd-ball answer be correct just because scientists don't have a sufficiently-thorough (which is a highly subjective standard in itself) answer to it? |
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hippy4christ
Skeptic Friend
193 Posts |
Posted - 11/01/2003 : 17:56:47 [Permalink]
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Hi,
Actually, there are some scientific facts in the Bible that were probably ahead of its time. For instance, "He stretcheth out the north over the empty place, and hangeth the earth upon nothing." Many scientific errors were brought in during the Dark Ages.
Anyway, Furshur, I use ICR because they contain arguments in favor of Creationism; then I come here to see if those arguments have any factual basis. Yes I know they're biased, and I don't approve of the derogeratory language they use when they speak of evolutionists. But everyone's biased to a degree, no one wants to find out that they're wrong. And I'm biased to the degree that I'll believe in a literal Bible until proven otherwise. And you'll believe in evolution until proven otherwise. I will accept anything you have to say to me so long as I can verify for myself that it's true. That's one of the basic functions of science, that we believe something that can be tested upon. I'm not going to accept evidence on somebody else's say-so. I'll go so far as to trust that they're not lying when they do their reports, but I'm not going to trust their conclusions before finding out how they arrived at their conclusions. As for why we havn't found any 'modern' animals with dinosaurs, I could think of a number of reasons, but I don't want to get into that argument because even if we never find 'modern' animals with dinosaurs that would still be circumstantial evidence, and not conclusive.
Dave: I agree that if four measurements say one thing and one measurement says something else that the four measurements are probably right, but we should still seriously examine the other factor. As for the other measurements, I'm sure you all know the kinds of things I was told about all the other measurements dating the Earth. I'll deal with them one by one.
Now then, back to the core: Are rocks good conductors of electricty? I ask because I was wondering, why hasn't the electricty in the core simply bled into the other layers until it equalized? I'm not a geologist either, but can we simply search the Web until we find an article detailing the studies that led to these conclusions? I have to use the Internet at a public library, so I have limited time whenever I use it.
I'm probably going to spend most of my time with this particular forum studying the young earth idea because I feel that is the most pivotal argument between evolution and creation.
Hippy. |
Faith is believing what you are told, whether it's by a priest or a scientist. A person's scientific beliefs are ones based on personal observation and experimentation.
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 11/01/2003 : 20:19:21 [Permalink]
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Hippy4Christ wrote:quote:
Anyway, Furshur, I use ICR because they contain arguments in favor of Creationism; then I come here to see if those arguments have any factual basis.
In all seriousness, you'll often be able to find out whether any ICR argument has a factual basis much faster by searching the TalkOrigins FAQ than by asking a question here and waiting for a reply.quote:
Dave: I agree that if four measurements say one thing and one measurement says something else that the four measurements are probably right, but we should still seriously examine the other factor.
Absolutely, but is there any reason to believe that Earth's magnetic field must be decaying in such a way that a person can use it as a measure of the Earth's age? If the geologists are correct, and paleomagnetism suggests they are, then the answer to my question is 'no', and the method warrants no further examination at all.
By way of analogy, it's like trying to measure a person's age based on their weight. Since there is such a wide range of possible weights (police recently found a 19-year-old who weighed 45 pounds - his parents had been starving him and his brothers), and there are plenty of people who gain weight around the holidays, and lose it for summer, such a method of measuring age would be worthless.
Such is the problem with magnetic fields. They fluctuate. The problem with the ICR's argument is that it assumes that the field only decays, and does so in a predictable manner. People who study the Earth's magnetic field for a living would say that such an assumption is unsupported by the data.
Also, here is Core Convection and the Geodynamo, a paper which describes what appears to be the latest in research about how the inner and outer core layers work together to generate and sustain the magnetic field.
quote:
As for the other measurements, I'm sure you all know the kinds of things I was told about all the other measurements dating the Earth. I'll deal with them one by one.
The TalkOrigins FAQ has the answers you seek. Really. Not that I'm trying to get rid of you - I just feel that finding the answers there would be a more-productive use of your library Internet-access time. If you'd prefer for us to answer, instead, that's fine by me, but it'll be slower. |
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