Dark Jedi

Can some of the more knowledgeable please demolish the two following arguements?
Any who know their source would be helpful too.

Posted as proof as to the young earth:

Arguement 1:

Quote:

Sodium in sea water equal approx. 18980 ppm, Sodium in river water is in the 5 ppm range, Mass of all the oceans 13.7x10**20, evaporation from the oceans about 4.4 x 10**17. Let's say that the rain that fell on land and made it to the oceans by flowing down a river only represented 10% of the time, that would be 4.4 x 10**16. So dividing the amount from the river into the total amount in the sea you end up with about every 31000 years the oceans are completely replace by river water that has previously evaporated from the oceans and left salt concentration to continue to increase. I picked sodium for this example because it is very strongly ionic, which means it will stay dissolved in the water and will not precipitate out. As we can see from the Dead Sea and the Great Salt Lake the concentration of sodium can get much higher than we see in the oceans before crystal of salt begin to form and start removing the sodium from the water. Let's continue the calculation . . . Evolutionist, believe life started on earth in the oceans 4,500,000,000 years ago. A simple division shows that evaporation and river run off has replaced the total mass of the oceans . . . let's see 4,500,000,000 / 31,000 = 145161 times . . . but that would mean that the oceans should be somewhere around 725,805 ppm instead of 18,980, that's almost 40 time not salty enough. The fact is that the oceans if they really were 4,5 billion years old, should be as salty as the Great Salt Lake. But this is just one more of the data points that so-called science just ignore or try to explain away to justify their old age theory. Remember we have several examples where rain water and evaporation has created a much saltier water than we find in the oceans, why are the oceans immune from the same physical laws.

Arguement 2:

Quote:

The planet Uranus is a very interesting planet . . . it seems to be standing on it's head. By this I mean that the planet is rotating in the reverse direction than all the other planets rotate. You see the problem is that the movement of the planets around the sun tends to exert a force on the direction that the planet rotates and Uranus is rotating against that force. While this force is small it would have force Uranus over a few million years to conform with the other planets rotations. So Uranus can not have existed for millions of years let alone billions of years in it's present orbit. The quick answer is just to say that it was captured a million years ago and hasn't had time for it's rotation to conform to the forces that act on it. However, if it was captured only a few million years ago we would expect it's obit to be distorted into an exaggerated ellipse, due to the energy that a free planet traveling into a solar system would have. That is much like the exaggerated ellipse of a comet. The fact is the orbit is not an exaggerated ellipse it is pretty close to a circle. So we have two conflicting pieces of data. 1) nearly circle orbit with would indicate that the planet had either been there for a very long time . . . billions of years or it was created with the solar system whenever that was. 2) The planet is rotating the wrong way . . . which would indicate that it had only been in the orbit a short time. The only way that these two pieces of data can be reconciled is for Uranus to have been created with the solar system some time less than a few million years ago. But then that isn't enough time for evolution. Some have suggested that maybe a meteor hit Uranus causing the planet to start rotating backwards. The problem with this theory is that anything causing that much disruption of the rotation of the planet would have also cause a disruption of the nearly circular orbit of the planet . . . but that didn't happen. This is just another set of data that has been ignored in order to keep the old age theory of the earth intact.

The poster is big on cut&paste, and ignores rebuttals. I care because there is a fairly large audience, and his sources are so full of mis-assumption and conclusion on those assumptions that he takes time to demolish, thus looking legitimate.

Jesus Tap-Dancin' Christ

The first one ignores other means of water replenishment, sodium loss, the actual rate of river replacement, etc.


I see no reason for rotational direction to have a gravitational effect. He's full of shit.

As for the impact, the impact would NOT have a serious effect on the orbit--the angular velocity is fo fucking huge compared to that of the impact that any effect would be almost nill and barely observable. I'll check with a prof on this tomorrow, though.

Arrowman

Dark One: These are among the most venerable of creationist crocks. Just a couple of quick sources, found as noted:

Salt in the Sea:
<a href="http://www.glenn.morton.btinternet.co.uk/salt.htm" target="_blank">http://www.glenn.morton.btinternet.co.uk/salt.htm</a>
(go to "No Answers in Genesis" at <a href="http://home.austarnet.com.au/stear/default.htm" target="_blank">http://home.austarnet.com.au/stear/default.htm</a> and search for "sea salt" for this and other articles.)

Uranus:
<a href="http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/feedback/nov99.html" target="_blank">http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/feedback/nov99.html</a>
(go to talk.origins and search the archive for "uranus" to get this and other articles)

I don't have time to work on a rebuttal myself, but the above-cited articles would seem to include some pretty straightforward quotable material so you don't have to construct the entire argument yourself.

Just one point which I think is important (especially for lurkers) when attacking things like the sea salt argument (the "age of comets" argument is another in this vein):

OK, so we have a clear explanation for the levels of salt in the sea. But even if we didn't - would that be proof of a young earth? Would failure to explain one phenomenon justify ignoring the massive volumes of accumulated evidence in other fields?

[ October 30, 2002: Message edited by: Arrowman ]</p>

Albion

Another argument to give them when they start this nonsense is that if these issues provide such glaringly obvious support for a young earth that even laymen can see it, how come the researchers in the field, who are using taxpayer dollars to do their work, have managed to miss it, or is it really all a huge conspiracy. I've found that people are reluctant to come right out with charges of fraud against researchers in entire branches of science.

I mean, it's well known that Uranus has retrograde rotation (as does Venus, I think); it sort of beggars belief that no astronomer in the last several decades would have suddenly realised the implications for a young solar system if in fact things are as this creationist is saying they are.

Here's another link for the seawater stuff

<a href="http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Hangar/2437/riverflo.htm" target="_blank">http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Hangar/2437/riverflo.htm</a>

Dark Jedi

Thanks folks. I will take a half hour out tomorrow to put together a couple replies.

No Answers in Genesis was one I should have thought of myself. I'll give myself a big DUH! tattoo when I have time...

Godless Dave

Complete and utter bullshit. Movement around the sun has nothing to do with the direction in which a planet rotates.

BibleBelted

You might ask him what the is behind the mechanism of this rotational force. If it is supposedly gravity, then why doesn't our moon rotate? Once his absurd notion is abolished, you might ask him why creationists have to resort to telling lies score any points.

Unfortunately, I've run across far too many who are willing to make this exact claim. Their argument is that any scientist who tells the "truth" offends their religion of Darwinism and will be shunned and denied research grants. <img src="graemlins/banghead.gif" border="0" alt="[Bang Head]" />

I know it's stupid, but I've heard it many times.

Jesus Tap-Dancin' Christ

Actually, our moon DOES rotate. However, it rotates at the exact orbital period, leaving us only seeing one side. Locking caused this. Due to a small differnce in mass distribution and the close disdtance, over time, the rotation slowed to the orbital period, keeping the more massive side nearest earth.

However, their argument fails due to the HUGE distances that we see around Uranus and nearby planets. Since gravity drops off by the inverse square of distance, it very, very, very quickly drops to almost nil outside a small area.

BibleBelted

[ken ham voice] Whuh you theah? [/ken ham voice]

OK, nitpicker, you got me. The moon does actually rotate. The point I was trying to make was that if there were some law of physics involved in the direction of planetary rotation, that same principle should cause our moon to visibly spin in a certain direction.

Relatively speaking, if the moon did not rotate at all, it would appear to -- as seen from Earth.

galiel

I honestly do not understand why a rational person would engage in such a discussion. To me, it seems to be playing into creationists' hands, playing on their turf.

They do not believe in science or the scientific method. They do not believe in following the evidence wherever it leads, they do not believe in scientific revolution, let alone evolution.

To engage them in a debate about their pseudo science, their hypocritical use of terminology that is derived from a discipline they reject, and to let them pretend to use logic to defend illogic, seems, to me, to be like arguing with a Holocaust denier about whether the gas chambers were spraying hot water for a shower or lethal gas.

The issue is not whether the evidence points to a young Earth or not. The issue is whether one follows reason or dogma.

I am not trying to be dismissive of those who spend a lot of time and effort trying to debunk these kooks. I am honestly wondering if this is the right approach.

(Constructive comments from posters who assume I am sincerely inquiring and not gratuitously critical of the efforts of others would be greatly appreciated.)