Starlight and time

One of the most frequent examples criticising creationism that I encounter is the starlight problem and the age of the earth. Perhaps this is somewhat understandable in that the problem is relatively well understood, and is a real problem. These same people are not often critical of the horizon problem, which, again may be understandable because the horizon problem is not known about by many and not quite so easily understood. Nevertheless, both problems: distant starlight and a young earth; and the horizon problem; are starlight problems.

The starlight problem is this: God can create with an appearance of age, but most suggest that it would be at the level of what is required for a mature creation. So God creating several different types of rock as a foundation for the earth is reasonable even if that may appear to some to be a feature of age. But to claim that fossils of animals within rocks were created in the position to make it appear like they were buried despite never existing seems non-congruent with God’s nature. Most creationists, and most people, think fossils represent real animals.

Now God also created stars and they are a long way away. Adam would not have seen them until the light travelled here from the star. Now God could have created the light in transit which I think is fits with necessity of appearance of age. God made the stars for a purpose which involves seeing the star so creating the star and the starlight at the same time may be necessary. The problem with created light is that this light carries information. It carries information about what each star is made from, how fast it spins, when it becomes brighter (nova), and when it explodes (supernova), etc. Now I happen to think that the first 2 of these pieces of “information” (composition and spin) are legitimate to put into created light in transit, they represent the star as it is. But putting in information for the star’s destruction if it never happened seems a little like creating fossils of animals that never existed. Thus creationists think that supernova represent true star destruction. And supernovas more than 6000 light-years away should not be visible in a world only 6000 years old.

So the problem is: how did the light get from the star to earth in so short a period? How did light from a star more than 6000 light-years away get to earth in less than 6000 years? Now this is a real problem. Nevertheless, the stellar evolutionists have exactly the same kind of problem: the horizon problem.

The temperature of space is uniform and there is not enough time for light to have travelled across space to equalise temperatures, even after billions of years. This is well recognised by evolutionists and is called the “horizon problem.” The temperature of space in all directions is much more symmetrical than it should be.

Before we propose any solutions to these problems, what is extremely important to note is that both creation theory and stellar evolutionary theory have a light-travel time problem. So even if we do not know what the solution is, it is logically invalid to dismiss creationism because of the light-travel problem in favour of evolution when it has exactly the same problem. Goose and gander and all.

As it so happens, solutions are proposed by both schools. One may favour one over another, but if your proposed solution has no scientific validation, it is tenuous to use the solution as proof of the truth of your theory. All you can do is claim you have rescued your theory.

The main solution of evolutionists for the light transit problem is the inflationary big bang model.

Creationists have proposed

• c decay
• white hole cosmology
• Carmeli cosmology

While c decay (slowing of the speed of light) is out of favour with most creationists, I have some time for it.

Did Charles Darwin recant his theory of evolution?

Creation.com has an interesting article about Charles Darwin's (1809–1882) last days. Russell Grigg reviews the idea held by some that Darwin recanted his theory and became a Christian before his death. Grigg reviews Lady Elizabeth Hope's (1842–1922) recounting of her meeting with Darwin in 1881 (which was first published in 1915), and two books about the topic: Darwin and Lady Hope: The Untold Story by L. R. Croft and The Darwin Legend by James Moore.

It is a thought-provoking read. Grigg concludes that Hope's recount is honest, though the account does not necessarily say that Darwin recanted his ideas, nor can it be concluded that Darwin became a Christian—the article does not mention it, but it is useful to remember Darwin studied theology as part of his arts degree; this may be relevant in interpreting what Darwin was saying to Hope.

Grigg does not think it is likely Darwin became a Christian. He also thinks Darwin subscribed to his theory of the origin of species by natural selection and the descent of men from apes till his death.

Thus Hope's account is accurate from the conversation had, further Darwin may have vacillated in his conversations.

Atheism's religion

Is atheism a religion? Is evolutionism a religion? Is secularism a religion?

Subscribers to various positions try to prejudice their own beliefs by claiming that religious beliefs should be excluded from the public square, or that such beliefs represent a conflict of interest, or a bias—often implying an unacceptable bias.

Of course if religion is (reasonably) defined as belief in a deity or, more broadly, the supernatural, then materialism is not a religion. Unfortunately for the materialist he is not off the hook. Firstly the debate is over truth. And if God exists, as the majority of the world has believed since creation till now, then the premises of the atheist are false and his conclusions are more likely to be errant.

Even ignoring this, the relegation of religion to second tier prominence is unjustifiable. What is it that people believe? It is their worldview. Consistent or not, events are interpreted according to an underlying belief structure. It is not more logical to justify a course of action based on considerations that deliberately deny divinity rather than affirming it.

One may categorise a worldview by topic. Say, how does one view economics or philosophy? Within such a system the atheist has a view on theology. His claim is atheism, the Christian's claim is theism. Other particular worldviews include pantheism.

The atheist wishes to allow his denial of theism to influence his views, yet deny his theology (atheism) shut him out of the marketplace of ideas; the very reason he gives for banning the theist. He labels a theistic worldview "religion," which is enough to disparage ideas influenced by it, but somehow not have the same effect on areligious reasoning. He wants to eat and keep his cake.

Some atheist and evolutionist thinkers are more aware of the influence of worldview, and can see how such premises affect their ideas in ways analogous to religion. From their mouths....

Hubert Yockey (1916–), evolutionist. Journal of Theoretical Biology (1977), doi:10.1016/0022-5193(77)90044-3.

One must conclude that, contrary to the established and current wisdom a scenario describing the genesis of life on earth by chance and natural causes which can be accepted on the basis of fact and not faith has not yet been written.

Boyce Rensberger, evolutionist. How the World Works.

The fact is that scientists are not really as objective and dispassionate in their work as they would like you to think. Most scientists first get their ideas about how the world works not through rigorously logical processes but through hunches and wild guesses. As individuals, they often come to believe something to be true long before they assemble the hard evidence that will convince somebody else that it is. Motivated by faith in his own ideas and a desire for acceptance by his peers, a scientist will labor for years knowing in his heart that his theory is correct but devising experiment after experiment whose results he hopes will support his position.

Richard Lewontin (1929–), evolutionist. The New York Review of Books (1997).

We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfil many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is an absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.

John Dunphy, humanist. The Humanist (1983).

I am convinced that the battle for humankind’s future must be waged and won in the public school classroom by teachers who correctly perceive their role as the proselytizers of a new faith: a religion of humanity that recognizes and respects the spark of what theologians call divinity in every human being. These teachers must embody the same selfless dedication as the most rabid fundamentalist preachers, for they will be ministers of another sort, utilizing a classroom instead of a pulpit to convey humanist values in whatever subject they teach, regardless of the educational level—preschool day care or large state university. The classroom must and will become an arena of conflict between the old and the new—the rotting corpse of Christianity, together with all its adjacent evils and misery, and the new faith of humanism … .

Michael Ruse (1940–), agnostic.

Evolution, akin to religion, involves making certain a priori or metaphysical assumptions, which at some level cannot be proven empirically.

Species and speciation

Evolution claims common descent, that is all life forms are related to each other via a common ancestor. Every living thing shares a granddad—if we go back far enough, or put more scientifically, universal common ancestry.

The alternative is known as fixity of the species, species don't change. Of course species do change, every offspring is different to its parents. On a population level gene frequencies change and mutations arise. So fixity of the species cannot mean change does not occur, rather that it is limited. So how does one define species?

Unfortunately the number of definitions is somewhat large, and much depends on what you want your definition to do. If you favour evolution, then definitions more in line with the theory may be favoured. A creationist could do the same.

From a creationist perspective I would favour the definition of species to be that of the fundamental types of plants and animals God created to breed with each other. A tree with fruit producing seed after its kind (Genesis 1:12). Beasts after their kind (Genesis 1:25). This is the basis of baraminology.

How do we work this out in practice? Some of the animals extant are different in some ways from their likely forebears, though many bear striking resemblance!

Linnaeus was onto something. Unfortunately it seems his species and even genus categories were not broad enough. We do not have fixity of the species if we use the Linnaean taxonomy.

If we start with created kinds that can breed, changes over time may limit reproduction. For example changes in body size, or timing of fertility, or cellular incompatibility may preclude breeding. These changes may come about by genetic changes such as allelic loss, mutation, targeted adaptability, chromosomal rearrangement. So while I dispute a species definition based on isolated reproductive populations, such populations may in fact be unable to breed when reintroduced to each other.

It seems likely that the various feline species descended from a pair (or group) of cats with great capacity for variation. The same with cattle, dogs, bears, and so on. Such variation can be seen in the size difference between a lion and a domestic cat, and the coat differences between tigers and leopards.

The best working definition for "species" (or type, or kind, or baramin) would consider hybridisation. Organisms that can produce offspring whether sterile, fertile (partially or fully) would be included within the same species group. A corollary of this is organisms that share hybridisation partners (however distant) would be grouped together.

This would greatly reduce the number of species, and each species would show significant variation, but the species would be isolated from each other. Tigers, leopards, lions, jaguars, lynxes will all be grouped together, but they would remain completely distinct from bears or parrots.

This is similar to fixity of the species. It allows for greater variety than is usually envisioned, though not an alien idea if we ponder domestic dog varieties. It allows for speciation in that subsequent populations may lose breeding capacity with each other, though at the cost of decreased genetic diversity, and no capacity to generate fundamentally new organisms. Some may dispute this definition of fixity of the species by reason that such groupings are frequently at the level of family or even order, or that non-interbreeding populations may arise. Fine, I am committed to the concept, not the name. "Inviolable organism boundaries with capacity for significant adaptation" is adequately descriptive though not so eloquent.

In your faces evolutionists

We have been long told that most of the DNA we have is junk, useless leftovers with no function after millennia of mutation and selection. Apparently only gene coding DNA is functional. Thus it was in the 1980s, and 1990s, and even 2000s though some of the more astute were suspicious.

The creationists were more circumspect. Perhaps gene coding DNA was a small component of the genome but, they protested, all that DNA is there for a reason. We are designed and we are very complicated. Our lack of knowledge does not preclude that the rest of the DNA is functional, we just aren't finished looking. So the junk DNA scenario was disputed by creationists decades ago. Pseudogenes, they said, probably had a function and were not left over relics from our primate, mammalian or reptilian past. Other codes beyond the triplet codon to amino acid likely existed.

This week Nature published 6 papers of several they aim to publish on the ENCODE project, along with other related material at their site.

The publication has made this news though much of this kind of information has been known to several researchers. The importance of introns has been known for some time. That polymerases produce far more RNA than is translated into protein is documented, even if the reason the this has been elusive. Gene regulators and promoters have been known of for decades, though it turns out that enhancers do not exist solely adjacent to the gene, but at distances of hundreds of thousands of bases distant. Why? Well because the 3 dimensional configuration of DNA means that a distant "file" location may happen to be physically nearby.

Interestingly the design advocates were long claiming unknown function for junk DNA. After all, while a few mutations have accumulated since creation, 95% of our genome housing junk is not consistent with design, even broken design. Creationists were dismissed, but it turns out they were correct all along. And the evolutionists who insisted that our genome was predominantly junk are left looking the fool. So much for the off quoted adage,

Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution.

Though I don't expect them to be questioning their dogma soon, rather adding some evolutionary spin,

Why evolution would maintain large amounts of 'useless' DNA had remained a mystery, and seemed wasteful. It turns out, however, that there are good reasons to keep this DNA.

Fossilised copulating turtles

Palaeontologists are at a loss to come up with the mechanism of death in fossilised copulating turtles. The paired turtles had been known for some time and, while mating had been hypothesised, the confirmation that each of the pairs were male and female, as well as some specific positioning, has strengthened the theory.

Male turtles of this species, like many of their modern relatives, have longer tails than females, said Joyce. Also, males were typically smaller than females, a trend clearly seen in the fossils. Finally, in seven of the nine pairs, the turtles are in direct contact along the edge of their shells just above their tails - and in two of those pairs, the male's tail wraps below the female's shell in mating position.

What mechanism would cause the death of 9 (!) pairs during mating? Toxic algal blooms; carbon dioxide in the water; other toxic substances. The proposal is oxygenated upper lake water and saturation of the lower lake water with carbon dioxide or other toxins. They claim this causes death during the act followed by preservation in the oxygen poor water. This seems a bit of a stretch, and so many pairs. It would be interesting to know if turtles stop mating during forced suffocation.

I prefer the creationist proposal for fossilisation: burial in sediments such as mud and lava flows during flooding and volcanic activity. Rapid death and conditions for fossil formation occur together. This explains the mechanism of fossilisation which does not usually occur when animals die; fossil graveyards; and why animals are found in situations such as eating, or giving birth.

Defining creationism

Creationism has a variety of definitions depending on who is using the term. Frequently it is used as a shorthand to Young Earth Creationism, sometimes to the consternation of those who hold to what they consider creationism but don't think the earth is young. Their complaint has some validity, but the cumbersome term Young Earth Creationism invites itself to be shortened. Biblical Creationism has been suggested as an alternative to Young Earth Creationism, especially considering that 6000 years is not really that young. I am not in favour of this. Though I think the Young Earth Creation position is biblical, it not as if other creationists all think their positions are unbiblical. Even if Old Earth Creationism turns out to be unbiblical it is premature to anticipate the outcome of the debate. Literal Creationism would be an alternative to Young Earth Creationism if it were not for the problem that literalism is frequently misunderstood to mean hyperliteralism.

I am not a great fan of eponyms though that is often the outcome. Descriptive labels are good. Perhaps the best labels are those invented by one's opponents so long the term is acceptable to its adherents.

Old Earth Creationism may include ideas such as Progressive Creationism and Gap Theory. I think it preferable to group the major positions logically, then discuss the variants within a general position.

Here are several positions. I have tried to describe the position as viewed by adherents, feel free to correct me if you think I have misconstrued your position.

Young Earth Creationism
Age of Earth
This is the position that God created the world ~6000 years ago, though some may hold to 10000 or 20000 years. The age is that of the earth, the age of the universe is variable, but it was made at the same time at the earth and the universe's age is the same as the earth's age when measured by earth clocks. It denies the big bang occurred.

Species Change
Young Earth Creationism rejects the grand theory of evolution, the idea that all of life came from a single ancestor through a variety of creatures over millions of years. While some claim that it holds to the fixity of the species, this is a less helpful definition due to consensus on how species are defined. Fixity of the genera would be more accurate. It claims that God created various kinds or types of animals so there is no common ancestor of all creatures.

Noachic Deluge
Young Earth Creationism holds that the Flood of Noah was global and is the cause of sedimentary rocks and much fossilisation of plants and animals.

Old Earth Creationism
Age of Earth
This position thinks that the age of earth is 4 billion years and the universe several billion years older. It subscribes to an ancient cosmology including the big bang theory and stellar evolution.

Species Change
Old Earth Creationism also rejects the grand theory of evolution, though they think that various flora and fauna appeared on earth at various times over the last several million years. This are often ascribed to ongoing creative acts. Species may go extinct and fossils are dated according to evolutionary geological scales. Radio-dating is accepted as reliable.

Noachic Deluge
Old Earth Creationism states that the Flood of Noah was local, that the geological strata antedate the Flood by millions of years, and most fossilisation was not a result of the Flood.

Theistic Evolution
Age of Earth
This position thinks that the age of the earth and universe is billions of years. It holds to big bang theory and stellar evolution.

Species Change
Theistic Evolution thinks that all species arrives on this earth according to Darwin's General Theory of Evolution. All living things are linked by common ancestry. They deny the fixity of species, genera, orders etc. as new species are always evolving. Some hold to chemical evolution of life, others argue that the first cell was divinely created.

Noachic Deluge
Theistic Evolution holds no specific view on Noah's Flood. It may be mythical. If it occurred it was local at not responsible for sedimentary rocks or fossils. It denies that all land animals except those on the ark were destroyed. It may deny that all humans, except Noah's family died.

Summary
Young Earth Creationism and Old Earth Creationism deny the Grand Theory of Evolution, that is universal common descent is not a correct description of the history of life. Their differences concerning the appearance of life on earth leads to significant differences in theology however.

Old Earth Creationism and Theistic Evolution deny the earth is only several thousand years old. Both think that the universe is billions of years old, stellar evolution is correct and radio-dating is reliable

Intelligent Design
Intelligent Design does not fully fit into this scheme. It has been accused of being clandestine creationism. I am not certain this is fair as creationism is often meant to mean young earth creationism, and many advocates of intelligent design deny a young earth.

Intelligent design only has a position on biological evolution. It has no position on the age of the earth or Noah's Flood.

Intelligent design argues that features in living things that have the appearance of design have been designed by an intelligent designer. That is, design is real, not apparent. Their arguments include information content in the genome, irreducible complexity of biochemical pathways, and statistical impossibility of evolutionary required genomic changes.

Age estimate for chromosome divergence

JS Allen mentioned a couple blog posts concerning the time the Y chromosome may have gone thru a bottleneck.

• How old is Y-chromosome Adam?
• The father of us all: 142 thousand years ago

The second refers to the article A Revised Root for the Human Y Chromosomal Phylogenetic Tree: The Origin of Patrilineal Diversity in Africa.

Dienekes first post suggests that the divergence of the Y chromosome was 40,000 years ago, the second mentions recent data pushing the date back to 140,000 years. This material is something that Dienekes follows, whereas I am only moderately familiar with it. The journal article covers material on genetic anthropology and my reading on genetics is focused more on disease, but I wish to identify a few assumptions that mean I do not agree with the dates suggested.

My post was on the variation of autosomes, sex chromosomes and mitochondria based on a bottleneck of 3 brothers and their wives. The issue of dating a bottleneck, while related, is a different question. The later requires knowledge of

1. the variation currently and the likely original sequences; and
2. molecular clock rates.

Both have significant assumptions and I differ from the authors in several of them.

The article mentions that they attempted independence with regard to 1 then they discuss assumptions relating to using chimp Y chromosomes and human X chromosomes

We obtained a strict-consensus MP [maximum parsimony] tree, which was rooted with respect to either orthologous chimp MSY [male-specific region of the human Y chromosome] sequence... or paralogous human X chromosome sequence...

This hardly seems independent. I reject the use of other species sequences as having relevance, and I do not know whether my assumption of 8 X's to 1 Y at the bottleneck affects the second. So the resulting phylogeny is not necessarily correct.

The problem with molecular clocks is they are not independent either. Dienekes mentions a calibration of 70,000 years for a split but what is this based on? More to the point, in his 2010 post he raises the problem with molecular clocks.

Age estimates vary overall between 6,530 years and 535,755! It is obvious that fast/medium mutating markers provide unbelievably small age estimates (most of them are less than 20 thousand years). However, if we limit the analysis to slow mutating markers, most age estimates are in excess of 300,000 years!

In short, you can arrive at any age estimate you want, by choosing a particular mix of slow and fast mutating markers.

He says (correctly) that we mustn't average different clocks. He rejects throwing them in the trash and argues for identifying the correct clock.

But that is equivalent to having a number of different clocks, some of which tell you that 3 seconds have transpired, and some which tell you that it's been a whole minute. The rational thing to do is not to take an average, but to throw the clocks in the garbage, or figure out what's wrong with them.

I agree, but we are likely to differ on what we consider reliable. I suspect mutation is more rapid than accepted by evolutionists, if so then the clocks are going faster than anticipated. I would like to see some data obtained with fixed dates and generation numbers.

These are just 2 problems with the interpretation. There is also the interbreeding question, the targeted DNA changes versus random mutation, the incompleteness of the data (both complete Y DNA and adequate sampling of the populations). Further data will be interesting.

The greater issue is that (hidden) assumptions markedly affect interpretation. While  interpretations such as given in the paper will be seen as evidence for the evolutionary scheme, so much of the evolutionary paradigm is assumed that it becomes very circular. This is not intrinsically bad, but lack of awareness of assumptions can have the effect that you think your interpretation is stronger than it really is. This can be a potential issue for creationists also, though given their strong focus on identifying underlying assumptions, and that they are working within a paradigm they generally disagree with, I think they are often more attuned to this issue.

Fraud and forgery in paleoanthropology

The fraud surrounding Piltdown man is well documented. In a recent article from the Answers Research Journal Jerry Bergman notes that not only fraud, but also abysmal science, infects the historical science of paleoanthropology.

Abstract

A review of the history of paleoanthropology leads to the conclusion that the discipline is far less objective than that for physics, chemistry, or even biology. The field is rife with controversy and fraud, including outright faking. Classic examples include Piltdown man and Hesperopithecus, but many other less well-known examples exist that are reviewed in this paper. Several well-documented examples are cited in some detail to illustrate the types of problems encountered, and the results of fraud in paleoanthropology.

The article is interesting not only for documenting the sorry state of alleged human evolution but also raging controversy arising from the hubris and self-aggrandisement of the players in this field. Bergman concludes,

In a field based on little empirical evidence, many assumptions, and strong personalities, the bone wars illustrate the conflicts common among scientists in this area. The unprofessional and at times even fraudulent behavior of the leading participants is far from what one would expect from highly trained professionals.

The importance of information in the evolution debate

Creationists often mention the concept of information as a challenge to the grand theory of evolution.

Information as a concept has long been recognised. It is something all people agree exists even if there is debate about how it is categorised. Archaeologists discovering inscriptions know there is a meaning even if they do not know what the meaning is, and most people would not dispute this. People recognise several things that are designed. Though one could say they do so because they already know these things are designed, such as a car or computer; there are examples of things we are not previously aware of, but we would still recognise intention.

As I have mentioned previously, information is not composed of, nor derived from matter. Of course it can be stored in matter.

There are several concepts of what information is, at least in terms of how we should represent information theory mathematically.

The application to evolution centres on the connection to DNA. DNA is recognised as carrying information. It has meaning. It resembles a blueprint, and metaphorically is one.

We can study how information originates. If the source of all information can be shown to be greater information (that is intelligence), then this conclusion also applies to DNA.

There are 2 potential ways that one could show information cannot be produced by itself. It may be possible to show this mathematically, in which case we can be absolutely certain (or essentially certain if the proof is statistical).

If not mathematically, it may be possible to show this empirically: that is, in investigating all the billions of examples of information that have been directly observed; if all are shown to have come from higher information sources and zero are self producing, then we can be extremely confident of our thesis.

Therefore the impossibility of information coming from non-information, mathematically or empirically, disproves Darwinism. Rather than being a red-herring as is sometimes claimed, information theory is absolutely central.

The only test of any analysis is its truth

I am currently reading America's Great Depression by Murray N. Rothbard. He makes an interesting comment concerning critiques of Austrian economic theory. If it was included in the first edition, this comment was made in 1963:

Hayek believes that Mises's theory is somehow deficient because it is exogenous—because it holds that the generation of business cycles stems from interventionary acts rather than from acts of the market itself. This argument is difficult to fathom. Processes are either analyzed correctly or incorrectly; the only test of any analysis is its truth, not whether it is exogenous or endogenous. If the process is really exogenous, then the analysis should reveal this fact; the same holds true for endogenous processes. No particular virtue attaches to a theory because it is one or the other.

I found this reminiscent of the intelligent design debate. My substitutions bolded.

Evolutionists believe that intelligent design theory is somehow deficient because it is non-naturalistic—because it holds that the generation of genetic information stems from interventionary acts rather than from acts of the organism itself. This argument is difficult to fathom. Processes are either analyzed correctly or incorrectly; the only test of any analysis is its truth, not whether it is naturalistic or non-naturalistic. If the process is really non-naturalistic, then the analysis should reveal this fact; the same holds true for naturalistic processes. No particular virtue attaches to a theory because it is one or the other.

The divorce gene

The Grand Theory of Evolution is clearly wrong as seen by comparing it to scientific findings that haven't been sieved thru an evolutionary filter prior to interpretation. But further evidence of its falsity and its implicit attack of Christianity can be seen by assessing its fruit. A recent example of evil disguised as science via evolutionary theorising can be seen in Helen Fisher's work.

But in country after country, and decade after decade, divorces tended to peak (the divorce mode) during and around the fourth year of marriage. There were variations, of course. Americans tended to divorce between the second and third year of marriage, for example. Interestingly, this corresponds with the normal duration of intense, early stage, romantic love — often about 18 months to 3 years. Indeed, in a 2007 Harris poll, 47% of American respondents said they would depart an unhappy marriage when the romance wore off, unless they had conceived a child.

Nevertheless, there was no denying it: Among these hundreds of millions of people from vastly different cultures, three patterns kept emerging. Divorces regularly peaked during and around the fourth year after wedding. Divorces peaked among couples in their late twenties. And the more children a couple had, the less likely they were to divorce: some 39% of worldwide divorces occurred among couples with no dependent children; 26% occurred among those with one child; 19% occurred among couples with two children; and 7% of divorces occurred among couples with three young.

She starts with some basic data gathering, all very reasonable. I do note that there are variations and there is no indication that data has been assessed over a long time period, say 2000–3000 years.

Then suddenly I got that "ah-ha" moment: Women in hunting and gathering societies breastfeed around the clock, eat a low-fat diet and get a lot of exercise — habits that tend to inhibit ovulation. As a result, they regularly space their children about four years apart. Thus, the modern duration of many marriages—about four years—conforms to the traditional period of human birth spacing, four years.

Perhaps human parental bonds originally evolved to last only long enough to raise a single child through infancy, about four years, unless a second infant was conceived.

Aside from mere assertion, lack of any rigour, or any actual scientific explanation—i.e. another evolutionary just-so story—this is justifying sin. Apparently we don't divorce because we are fallen, sin-choosing creatures. No, we evolved this way. It is in our genetic make-up. Our desire to divorce has no moral implications, it is the expected response to our physiology.

By age five, a youngster could be reared by mother and a host of relatives. Equally important, both parents could choose a new partner and bear more varied young.

And thus a conceived child-rearing methodology will be promoted as a valid alternative to the father and mother ideal.

My new theory fit nicely with data on other species.

Despite the fact that we are distinct from the animals which do not bear the imago dei.

Scientifically, evolution is a fraud. There is enough reason to reject it based on its falsity alone. But I think many Christians fail to realise how much of an attack on Christianity evolution is, and how intrinsically evil is this extremely prevalent lie.

Making energy work

Talk origins has a segment where they refute particular creationist claims. I was directed to this claim about energy transfer

Claim CF001.5:

Energy inflow into a system is not enough to make that energy useful. There must also be an energy conversion mechanism. Without that system, evolution cannot work.

Sourced from: Yahya, Harun, 2003. Darwinism Refuted, Evolution and thermodynamics.

Their response was two-fold. Dealing with them in order

Any atom can be an energy conversion mechanism. Atoms routinely convert between light energy, thermal energy, and chemical potential energy. The energy conversion mechanism is ubiquitous.

They seemed to have missed the word "useful" in the original quote. Drop water over a fall and the potential energy is converted to kinetic energy, heat and sound at ground level. How is that useful? How is that work? But place a water wheel in it's path: an "energy conversion mechanism" and one gets useful work. The "conversion mechanism" is not referring to the change in energy type, it is referring to the ability to extract work.

Moving on

A lack of an energy conversion system would not only invalidate evolution; it would invalidate life itself. Evolution requires only reproduction, natural selection, and heritable variation, all of which are observed in life. The conversion of energy is a quality of life, so the conversion system exists for evolution to work with.

Equivocation. Natural selection requires reproduction, and heritable variation (no dispute). Macroevolution requires an expanded genome: new genes, promoters, proteins, control sequences, etc. For this one needs a source, mutation being the favoured source among evolutionists. I claim no there is no known mutation that increases information. Beneficial mutations are not necessarily information gaining.

I fail to see how life invalidates the claim. Living things are energy conversion systems.

The nature of information needs expanding; but for another time.