Detached9

This is from Dr Dino's webpage (www.drdino.com), it is in response to "If the world is only 6,000 years old, how do we see stars billions of light years away?"

I doubt almost anything he says, but I'm not sure exactly where to pinpoint some of his errors.

I'm pretty sure for [2], where he states the light isn't at a constant speed because it can be sped up by a particle accelator, is irrelevant. Isn't the speed of light constant in a vacuum?

For [3], this basically is saying that although it seems the world is much older than 10k years, God only made it to seem that way, possibly to test the believer's faith. A prankster God? Does this concept of God actually want people to believe in him?

tgamble

It would be more difficult to pinpoint some of his honesty. He's an idiot.

His first claim is just plain wrong. It's been done.

His second claim is also wrong. There is no evidence that the speed of light has decayed.

The third claim is just crap. You just as well say the world was created last week. Or 5 minites ago. Just a desperate attempt to make his fantasy world fit reality.

The guy is a major league asshole.

Ragnarok

1. He's probably talking about measuring distance through parallax using the fact that the earth's orbit moves it around a roughly 180,000,000 mile ellipse every year. Other methods for measuring distance are more deductive and less obvious like redshift, observation of cephied(sp?) variable stars, etc. Typical cretinist tactic. Reject all but the most elementary and undeniable facts and claim the rest are some kind of conspiracy. The simple minded can usually grok the basic trig of parallax but when you get into more advanced cosmology many people would rather think the evil-utionists are up to something and stick with the simple ideas of Dr. Dino.

2. Perhaps a reference to the fact that light travels at different speeds in different media but nowhere is seen to exceed "c" (the speed of light in vacuum) or roughly 300,000km/sec.

3. If this is true then why does he bother challenging the apparent distances to the stars or the speed of light's constancy? Maybe this is just a fall back in case the other two arguments get destroyed since they are so flimsy. Always good to have something like this handy. It amounts to the famous "the universe was created 8 minutes ago with a complete false history" argument. It's not falsifiable but it can get you out of a tight spot in a debate and make you look so good in front of an audience that doesn't know any better or has never seen the trick before.

Edited b/c I had AiG where Dr. Dino needed to be.

[ February 26, 2002: Message edited by: MoCk ]</p>

BLoggins02

#2 is just BS. He clearly doesn't understand the fact that light speed in a vaccuum is constant and is the upper limit, whereas the introduction of ANY matter may or will impede the speed.

#3 is a fairly common claim, but it's about as useless as the "last tuesday" hypothesis- the claim that God made everything (including our memories and all the scientific evidence that things are otherwise) last tuesday. It's a perfectly unscientific hypothesis, there's no way to EVER prove it wrong, kinda like creationism. Besides, who wants to spend eternity with such a devious bastard?

#1 I've heard, but have never heard a good refutation for. I assume there is one, as something this major probably wouldn't go unnoticed by the astronomic community, I await other's explanations. This is the only one worth talking about, really.

Edited to say: well, it looks like the "last tuesday" thing's been repeated ad nauseum so far, sorry

[ February 26, 2002: Message edited by: BLoggins02 ]</p>

DireStraits

DS: Go here to find out how credible Kent Hovind really is:

<a href="http://www.geocities.com/kenthovind/" target="_blank">http://www.geocities.com/kenthovind/</a>

Detached9

In regards to measuring the distances to stars, this is what Dr. Dino states:

"Serious problems" that he didn't care to mention. Instead you have to pay for the information, which probably is extremely lacking.

Isn't attacking Kent Hovinds credibility instead of his arguments a form of ad hominem? That's why I'm looking for rebuttals to his arguments, not just that he lies often.

Coragyps

Sadly, you are probably right there.

The Hipparcos satellite measured (in 1991) parallaxes accurately out to about 300 light years - they have a website with bunches of details. There is a measurement akin to parallax, which I will try to find a link for, which trigonometrically measures a distance of, IIRC, 18 million light years. It used radio telescopy to measure rotational velocity of a disk in a galaxy (by Doppler shift) and to simultaneously measure the transverse velocity of a "knot" in the disk (by interferometry). The distance is derived strictly from geometry.
I really like the creationist argument that stars are not as far as they appear. I have to wonder if these same people think that a semi going away from them on a long, straight highway morphs into first a Tonka Truck and then a Matchbox as it shrinks and its taillights get dimmer.

Daggah

I don't disagree that it's probably an ad hominem, but is it really logically fallacious to attack an opponent's integrity and intellectual honesty (or lack thereof)? Obviously, one should be skeptical of the claims of men who are proven liars.

gallo

For #3 see <a href="http://home.houston.rr.com/bybayouu/SN1987A.html" target="_blank">Starkle, starkle little twink</a>

ex-robot

I wonder if it bothers Hovind that not only evolutionists think he is an idiot but most yec organisations and scientists as well. Except for fundie churches, I have never seen somebody like the icr, aig, or whoever say "yeah, be sure to check out Kent Hovind at a town near you".

xr