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You mean like the creationist (Russell Humphreys) who correctly predicted all the magnetic fields in the solar system?

http://www.creationresearch.org/crsq/articles/21/21_3/21_3.html

And the evolutionists who keep redoing their junk "dynamo" hypothesis to "explain that too".

Q: How much magnetic field will Uranus have?

Evolutionists: Zero, cause it's a gas planet and doesn't have enough metal for the dynamo effect.

Creationist: Between 2 and 6 x 10^21.

Big difference there. Guess who was right?

Yes, I have heard them say this repeatedly. It is the core of the creationist dispute with evolution. For example look here. The statement isn't there, unless you meant "somewhere on this site is something like that". I was expecting an actual valid backing of your claim, actually. Typically, the effort would be to harmonize the understanding of scripture with science, rather than simply state "it cannot be", especially since the next step would be to consider various interpretations among theists themselves. I again submit you have never in your life heard this presented, and presented as sufficient consideration of the matter.

It's pretty much the entire basis for that site, but you obviously didn't look very hard. Try this. Members of the Creation Research Society swear that nothing they "discover" will contradict a literal interpretation of Genesis.

All members must subscribe to the following statement of belief:

1. The Bible is the written Word of God, and because it is inspired throughout, all its assertions are historically and scientifically true in the original autographs. To the student of nature this means that the account of origins in Genesis is a factual presentation of simple historical truths.

2. All basic types of living things, including man, were made by direct creative acts of God during the Creation Week described in Genesis. Whatever biological changes have occurred since Creation Week have accomplished only changes within the original created kinds.

3. The great flood described in Genesis, commonly referred to as the Noachian Flood, was an historic event worldwide in its extent and effect.

4. We are an organization of Christian men and women of science who accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior. The account of the special creation of Adam and Eve as one man and one woman and their subsequent fall into sin is the basis for our belief in the necessity of a Savior for all mankind. Therefore, salvation can come only through accepting Jesus Christ as our Savior.

>I understand you've heard this repeated a thousand times before, and will repeat it yourself a thousand times more, but throughout that time it will persistently remain false. A test for ID would be, "enumerate the mutations required for all biological structures, eliminate those which require transitions which would not be survivable, calculate the probability given the population over that time". We are not yet able to do this fully as a matter of technology, but we'll inevitably get there.

False dichotomy. That would be a way to falsify evolution by means of natural selection, but it would in now way prove the reality of intelligent design.

>And... so what? This is textbook Genetic Fallacy. The truth or falsehood of an idea has nothing to do with its origination.

You're the one who cited Behe as an authority. I merely pointed out his obviously fallacious reasoning. You chose to use argument from authority. Don't whine when your choice of authority turns out not to be wearing any clothes.

It's too bad that nobody has proposed a theory that could be measured for each planet in our solar system and tested against a prior prediction to see if it is accurate. That would be the perfect scientific solution to the problem of planetary magnetic fields.

Or maybe someone has (article from before Voyager launched, summary from after it passed Neptune): Article Summary

One commentator says, "you would have thought we would have given up guessing about planetary magnetic fields after being wrong at nearly every planet in the solar system. . . ."

Thanks for that comment. It inspired me to post a snippet of a similar conversation I had months ago, with your links and some others added:

Is it right, however, to lump together those who are skeptical of evolution with those who are skeptical of AGW, particularly CO2-driven AGW ?

Creationists confuse religious faith with falsifiable science. Among the general public, climate-change contrarians (and your average Greenpeace/PETA loony) confuse political affiliation with falsifiable science. In both cases, scientists are much less likely to agree with either claim, and that likelihood decreases with increasing relevance of the scientist's field. That's probably why both groups tend to accuse the scientific community of conspiracy and/or widespread incompetence.

At my blog, the following statement is both legible and has popup titles describing why that link was chosen. Here it is without the links first: "And, in my experience there's a significant overlap between the two groups. Most of their arguments seem to be at similar intellectual and educational levels."

And, in my experience there's a significant overlap between the two groups. Most of their arguments seem to be at similar intellectual and educational lev els.

Wow. I'm impressed you took the time to rip apart my post line for line. That's good. We need more dissections of errant posts around here.

MODERATORS: Please mod the parent poster down as a troll or offtopic. And mod me down as flamebait or offtopic. I've wasted enough of my own time writing a response. Don't let any more readers waste their time reading any of this garbage.

I certainly hope nobody does that. This kind of discussion is exactly what is needed.

Would you care, shovas, user number 1605685 (my that IS a shiny new user account, isn't it!) to wager a guess as to what I think the real reason was for you posting that meandering soliloquy?

I've made two or three posts now and I've already got someone questioning my user ID. Awesome. I suppose it doesn't count for anything I've been reading here since the 90s? Why join now? I didn't think it was worth it before. I enjoy the site. I read a lot of the discussion. I saw a lot of misinformation on my hot button topics I thought I'd like to weigh into, though, so I thought I'd join after hearing my buddy join up recently too.

And, yes, I'd love to know what you think the real reason is.

Oh really. Do you have any reputable source to back that up? How about even one verifiable, specific number? A single believable example? Surely if you did, as a "staunch supporter of using scientific method", you would have mentioned it.

You know, mostly, I just assume if people wanted info on creation they'd google for "creation", maybe "creation science" if they think nothing of creation relating to science is out there. That's honestly why I didn't link to anything. I guess I'm seeing that most people just don't know about the creation "scene". I call it a scene, I know, but really there is a whole area of people and of study out there surrounding origins. There is so much serious research and data out there.

Without further adieu, Answers in Genesis (quite solid, I think), True.Origin (quite impressive the history between them and Talk.Origins), Institute for Creation Research (can't vouch for them but they've been around), Creation Research, and, I wish I had this in front of me, but a few weeks ago I was reading this dense, dense study on the atmosphere, it's composition, and relating it to young earth concepts.

This is just an example of what I thought most people would do: Google for "creation". Those are the items of interest which I particularly respect or that have a history. There is a whole world of creation science out there just a google away.

Do you have even a basic appreciation for how much information we carry around in our DNA [go.com]?

You are amusingly abrasive. That's ok, I can take it. I have a fuller apprecation than you know, although I'm always willing to learn more. The linked article is interesting and something, as I've read the news over years, I've already thought about (ie. "junk dna" is just our name for something whose purpose we haven't figured out yet).

To answer the first question: it was brought about by one or more mutations. Either you didn't read the article, or you don't understand basic biology ... or both. Your second question is invalid owing to the fact that you didn't know the answer to your first question.

Perhaps you want to read up on genetic mutation. My layman terms for pedant terms aren't really that confusing.

Did a mutation occur in which the genetic material acquired new information? My suggestion is that the mutation we're seeing is a re-expression of existing information.

Oh yeah, I'm stunned alright. Who the Hell invite

I mean geez people haven't you been keeping up with the latest issues of Creationism Quarterly!
This stuff is "Peer-reviewed by degreed scientists" it says so right on the website!
It has "Scholarly articles representing the major scientific disciplines" scientific disciplines like: biology, chemistry, theology, creationism! Duh!
"Emphasis on scientific evidence supporting: intelligent design, a recent creation, and a catastrophic worldwide flood"!

http://www.creationresearch.org/crsq.html /sarcasmbrainmelting

the creation theory contains no explanation for why all the evidence should consistently point to a much older age

You mean like this whole section of their website (with 8 subsections):

http://www.answersingenesis.org/get-answers#/topic/age-of-the-earth

But since it has yet to have ANY predictive successes

You mean like the creationist that correctly predicted the magnetic fields of all the planets prior to the Voyager flybys (non-creationists got them all wrong, but their theory is in your science book, not the guy who got them all right): http://www.creationresearch.org/crsq/articles/21/21_3/21_3.html

There are plenty of repeatable Creation experiments that include predictability. To assume there are none is pure ignorance of what Creation Science has to offer, the kind of ignorance that will be perpetuated by keeping it out of the classroom.

Prior to the Voyager launches, scientists attempted to predict the magnetic fields of each planet. Put simply, the Non-Creationists' theory is that the magnetic field is generated by metallic mass spinning at a certain velocity. The Creationists' theory is that everything was created from aligned water molecules ~6000 years ago and then decayed in a straight line from there.

Link to Original 1984 article Link to Less Technical Follow-Up

Mercury
Non-Creationist: 0
Creationist: 7.5 x 1022 J/T
Actual: (4.8 ± 0.3) x 1019 J/T
Non-Creationist quote: ... the very existence of the field is puzzling. If Mercury can maintain a steady dipole field, the earth, which rotates 59 times as fast and has a core twice as large, should be able to sustain more complicated fields.

Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn were known prior to the predictions.

Uranus
Non-Creationist: smaller field, or none at all
Creationist: 2.05 x 1025 J/T
Actual: 3.0 x 1024 J/T

Neptune
Both did equally well, but there was a surprise problem for the Non-Creationists. The Magnetic axis is at a 60 degree offset to the rotation axis, meaning that their predicted value would need to be reduced by 2/3.
Non-Creationist quote: Two odd magnetic fields is one too many.

The Creationist was within an order of magnitude on every planet in the Solar System. The Non-Creationists and their dynamo theory were wrong on more than 50% of the planets.
Non-Creationist quote: you would have thought we would have given up guessing about planetary magnetic fields after being wrong at nearly every planet in the solar system. . . .

Has the dynamo theory been falsified, even though it has an accuracy of less than 50%? No. It has been updated with wild additions involving multiple asteroid collisions and other even more fantastic theorized objects.

Has the Creationist theory replaced it, even though it predicted everything with 100% accuracy (within an order of magnitude)? No. It is rejected outright because it came from a Creationist, the same as what we are talking about in this article.

Although I only provided a single example (and there are thousands), I hope that this shows several points:

1. There are Creationists doing actual repeatable, predictable, falsifiable experiments according to the scientific method. These should be looked at because they are pure science. The source should be irrelevant if the experiment is sound and repeatable. The safety to do this is what is being proposed in the article.
2. Non-creationist theories are often not "falsifiable", even when they are wrong. The theory is simply updated with asteroid collisions or dark matter or the Oort cloud or various other "faith" objects that come out of devotion to a theory rather than observation. These violate the principle of the simplest explanation usually being the correct one.

3. Before making ignorant statements about what Creation Science offers (or doesn't offer), why not spend an hour or two familiarizing yourself with it: Answers in Genesis Q&A. Since this information has always been censored from you, you rightly assume that all evidence points unquestionably toward evolution, billions of years, etc., because there is "no evidence" to the contrary. Of course there is "no evidence", because your science books won't publish it. Why not read through it and make up your mind based on facts instead

>>Creationism makes no predictions.

This just simply isn't true. Creationists make predictions all the time, and they are often simpler, more accurate and require less precise asteroid collisions to make them true.

For example, in this paper, Dr. Humphreys makes predictions for the strengths of the magnetic fields for Uranus and Neptune, well before these magnetic fields were measured by the Voyager spacecraft. His predictions were "right on," whereas the predictions of evolutionists were not.

Article

Also, helium diffusion shows the earth to be 6000 years old. The levels of helium found by an evolutionist third party sent to an evolution-believing lab were correctly predicted by creationists, because they assumed that 6000 years worth of helium would have been lost.

Article

There is plenty of good science (repeatable experiments) being performed by incredibly intelligent people that would tend to disprove facets of the theory of evolution. Looking at all the evidence relating to a theory is what my science book described as good science.

Not looking at some of the evidence because you don't like it smacks of medieval "earth-is-flat" behavior. The last time we did that, it took us 1200 years to advance science. That period was called "The Dark Ages". The only difference is that it is now the scientific community that burns heretics at the stake of career ruination...

Why is it that the truth is only the truth if it makes someone money. Just because you can't make money by believing what is so obvious to true scientists does not make it false. The world's formation by God and the transformation via the Flood are easily seen if you use a truly open SCIENTIFIC mind. That is, consider all the options and see what the evidence BEST fits. You will quickly see that it is not uniformitarianism and evolution.

You might also check out Answers in Genesis (http://www.answersingenesis.org/), the Institute for Creation Research (http://www.icr.org/), the Creation Research Society (http://www.creationresearch.org/), and True.Origins (http://www.trueorigin.org/). All of these organizations provide resources from scientists credentialed in their fields of study showing how the Bible explains the creation of the world better than uniforitarianism.

David

Before the Voyager got to Uranus and Neptune, Dr. Russ Humphreys proposed that the plants were originally made of water, and made very accurate predictions of their magnetic fields based upon that theory.

Look under the section "Water: The Raw Material of Creation" *tranquilizers recommended* http://creationresearch.org/crsq/articles/21/21_3/ 21_3.html

(Please be sure to actually read is before axing my karma.)

You're funny :)

Talk about misrepresenting the government's position, and then wrapping yourself up in the robes of the oppressed!

You can't scream about "fairness" when the backers of intelligent design try to do an end run around the science community, the science process, good pedagogy and teachers to strike at the soft, sympathetic elected officials to sneak themselves into grade 9 classes.

Creationist tactics reek of contrived dualism: the utterly incorrect "if you're wrong on X then we must be right" view. If evolution were in some fantasy land 'disproven' tomorrow, that would not make literal biblical creationism automatically right. Neither would creationists in this day and age tolerate a grade 8 science class being taught about body thetans. Creationists are not interested in "fairness".

However, if ID ever gets a decent legal and scientific team on its side, we should make some headway.

Not just "scientific team", but if it ever gets decent science on its side like the Discovery Institute was supposed to do in 'Phase I: Scientific Research, Writing & Publicity' and was supposed to be the basis of everything that followed. But they got lazy, wanted a shortcut, and moved straight on to Phase III: Cultural Confrontation & Renewal.

If it could be shown that any one of these propositions does not hold, then Biblical creationism would crumble.

Horsepuckey. They have been proven wrong, and the response has been to just move the goalposts off the field, or as seems to be more common, just keep repeating exactly what you have just stated. It's a slick ruse, occasionally having to concede a point, and then to just stick it right back in as though nothing happened.

If you want to learn more about specific pieces of the evidence, you can buy books and read papers from any number of creation institutes, it's not worth discussing them here as I've done so many times before.

I have done so with many, and they repeat the same, tired mistakes. I find it interesting the way they present it, though. They use good logic in many spots, and then pull a switcheroo or an assumption out of the air at step 1, 5, or 10.

One of Dembski's latest on "specified complexity" is entirely like that. Strings out his math like a master. Then, in the last pages' worth of his paper, he lies about evolution. His entire mathematical proof is that you can't target a particular, exact spot in a mathematical space with a random walk; it needs explanation. In equating evolution with this, he implies that every generation would be using a 'random walk' with the express intention of producing you . My, my, jolly good, Dembski, you're such a smart man, but you lied on the last page to try to prove a false point about your opponents.

Papers like the ones Humphreys puts out are done in layers. The most "reasonable sounding" ones are the most public-facing, but they heavily rely on his other papers. When you check out his other papers, especially a couple of layers deep, you get gems like The Creation of Planetary Magnetic Fields which tries to prove that the Earth was a sphere of water, as he interprets in Genesis, and on the difficult steps, he invokes God in an utterly untestable manner...

In normal circumstances, the number of molecules in each of the four groups-three ortho and one para - is roughly equal. All the magnetic moments cancel out, so that water normally has no net magnetic moment of its own. However, God was under no requirement to create the water molecules in their normal order. For example, He could have created all the molecules with their proton magnetic moments lined up in a given direction

Check out the first article on this page: http://www.creationresearch.org/crsq/abstracts/Abs tracts42-2.htm (peer reviewed)

Sorry, forgot to give you the link to the abstracts.

He does go into more detail in some of the papers he references, but they're on similarly shaky ground.

The paper The Creation of Planetary Magnetic Fields contains a number of faith-based a priori assumptions. To wit:

To calculate the magnetic moment of a planet at creation, we must know the original material. In the previous article I presented Scriptural evidence that God originally created the Earth as a sphere of pure water.

The paper then proceeds from this assumption, calculating the magnetic moment of water, and so on.

You could proceed logically from such a questionable assumption, and come out with an equally questionable result. At least that would give you "if you accept premise A, I can show you that B is correct". However, there is more heavenly interference going on (I'll be adding my own italics - they're not in the original, of course):

All the magnetic moments cancel out, so that water normally has no net magnetic moment of its own. However, God was under no requirement to create the water molecules in their normal order. For example, He could have created all the molecules with their proton magnetic moments lined up in a given direction, producing the maximum magnetic moment possible from the protons. Or, He could have lined up the protons of the third ortho group (Figure 4(D)) along the field axis. Figure 5 shows this order. This would produce a field having one-fourth of the maximum strength with a minimum of deviation from the normal order. I do not know from Scripture what proportion of the protons God aligned in each case. In the previous article I put an arbitrary factor, k, into the equations. This alignment factor represents what fraction' of the maximum field God chose.

So, not only do we have to take on assumption that the earth started out as a sphere of water, but that, contrary to the current laws of physics, God is artificially aligning the water molecules to create a magnetic field.

The earth starting out as a sphere of water would presuppose as well that either the water can turn into rock (if you can find it, you can follow into his similarly-styled paper on "Is The Earth's Core Water?" - looks like it may only be in paper form or for subscribers only), or attract rock from nearby space (which would throw off the initial masses considerably - and which it doesn't look like he's promoting).

I would reiterate: the creationists are not being scientifically discriminated against, they're invoking supernatural powers to create just the right starting conditions and occasionally interfering with their development in order to arrive at the right already-measured values. That is not scientific, because it can never be proved wrong; the conditions and interference can be changed to suit.

I will actually levy the same charge against the current crop of cosmologists as well. They have made their theories so flexible that they can tweak knobs on equations at will, which means that it has lost nearly all predictive power.

The exchanges between Humphreys and Ross are pretty interesting :) Ross' side of the storm can be found at Reasons to Believe. Humphreys' side is peppered into numerous headlines at the ICR.

I'm inclined to believe Ross' reasons for reticence; ICR-sponsored debaters are known for being charismatic, picking the venue for maximum layman and supporter audience attendance, and coming with a well-prepared slick presentation and pitch, which their opponents, expecting an actual debate, come off as being boring, pedantic, and constantly on the defence. Ross has the right to be scared of that. Moderated debates, such as those on radio and television, do much better, and that goes as much for political debates.

Cheers, Eric

-- Ritchie

That most of science does not agree with the church is entirely because the church's claims are supported by little to no evidence.

Groups working to fix this problem include Answers in Genesis, the Institute for Creation Research, and the Creation Research Society. AiG and CRS both publish peer-reviewed journals.

Here's an article on Earth's magnetic field which appears to say different stuff to the link referenced above. "Dr. Humphreys is an ICR Adjunct Professor of Physics and a physicist at Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquergue, New Mexico. The Laboratories have not supported this work."

Here's a (linked) article celebrating his straight-over-home-plate predictions about other planetary magnetic fields from when Voyager II validated his predictions. The Sandia footnote has this interesting appendix: "and they neither affirm nor deny its scientific validity.".

It's not linked above, but here's the CRSQ article which led to all of the fuss. The next Mercury flyby that measures magnetic fields should be interesting.

I'm fairly sure none of this includes direct mention of the Earth's core fields, so either the article I have in mind wasn't written by Humphries or I've missed it somewhere along the line.

As usual, I will probably be marked as flamebait, but sometimes people read rather than mod, so I'll post anyway. Creationists have done discussions on the earth's magnetic field before, which is one method that shows a young date for the earth: http://www.creationresearch.org/crsq/articles/39/3 9_1/GeoMag.htm

My five-minute search produced several Web-published articles that I believe will meet your criteria. I have more in print form, packed away for now. Out of roughly 80 articles available to my by my quick search, I'll link to two, chosen more-or-less at random:

ICR: "The Relevance of Rb-Sr, Sm-Nd and Pb-Pb Isotope Systematics to Elucidation of the Genesis and History of Recent Andesite Flows at Mt Ngauruhoe, New Zealand, and the Implications for Radioisotopic Dating," by Andrew Snelling, Ph.D. (PDF format)

CRS Quarterly: "A Mechanism for Accelerated Radioactive Decay," by Eugene F. Chaffin, Ph.D.

Firstly, you're using the definition of life as essentially steady-state chemical reactions. That's awfully far from what most reasonable individuals would consider life. If you are open to investigating details on the probability of life arising, look here.

The point of the peanut butter illustration was perhaps a bit abstract, but still a key point. Inside that jar are amino acids, nucleic acids, sugars, carbohydrates, fats; basically a choice collection of key chemicals of life (that's why it's nutritious). Your claim therefore " Peanut butter doesn't have a sufficiently complex chemical mix ... [for] the arisal to life on the early Earth..." is somewhat inaccurate. The chemicals are there.

If you have anything of an open mind and are willing to look beyond the highly variable quality found on talkorigins, please read the detailed refutation of Barnes' work on the magnetic field here.

Firstly, you're using the definition of life as essentially steady-state chemical reactions. That's awfully far from what most reasonable individuals would consider life. If you are open to investigating details on the probability of life arising, look here.

The point of the peanut butter illustration was perhaps a bit abstract, but still a key point. Inside that jar are amino acids, nucleic acids, sugars, carbohydrates, fats; basically a choice collection of key chemicals of life (that's why it's nutritious). Your claim therefore " Peanut butter doesn't have a sufficiently complex chemical mix ... [for] the arisal to life on the early Earth..." is somewhat inaccurate. The chemicals are there.

If you have anything of an open mind and are willing to look beyond the highly variable quality found on talkorigins, please read the detailed refutation of Barnes' work on the magnetic field here.

I love your points, and I'd like to add a few more to the collection.

First is Robert Gentry's pleochroic halos research in granites with Po-218. These papers, published in Science and in Nature in the 60's and 70's, show that the foundation rocks (granites) of our continents were formed in seconds, not m|billions of years. Basically it shows there to be halos which could only exist from an isotope with about a three minute half-life as the initial phase. If the rocks were molten, the halos would not form with Po-218 as the parent. Only by either radically changing the radioactive decay rate, or by solidifying rapidly could they contain these halos. For details, see his book or summaries at his web site. Note that his research was never refuted in peer-reviewed journals equivalent to the ones his work was published in. There's a really weak attack on him at talkorigins, and if someone wants to try to defend Brawley's post there, go right ahead.

Next I'd like to highly recommend Russ Humphrey's paper on the decline in total energy in the earth's magnetic fields. The traditional response by evolutionists and old-earth advocates has been that the magnetic field energy is shifting from the dipole to nondipole moments (quadrapoles, octapoles, etc.) in preparation for an eventual field reversal. However Humphreys shows from detailed data that both the dipole and non-dipole moments are decreasing (non-dipole is slower but definitely decreasing). See his paper at CRSQ.

Further work by Gentry is about helium retention in deep rocks. Basically this comes down to two points: helium in deep rocks has not escaped, although it should have if they were the billion-year old strata they are claimed to be. Second, the amount of He in the atmosphere is 0.05% of what would be expected over 5 billion years (including the rate of He escape from the atmosphere over that time). Gentry's paper is: Gentry, R.V. et al., "Differential helium retention in zircons: implications for nuclear waste management", Geophys. Res. Lett. Vol 9, Oct 1982, 1129-1130. It's also in his book.

Further examples are salinity of the ocean, mud in the sea, comet deterioration rates, and too few "stone age" skeletons.

How can anyone not read this and firstly not fall about in laughter at the poor research, then believe that just because it is written down that Jack P Lester has a PHD that it is actually true. Mmm, maybe creationists?

Articles

Wow. Your response was the most intelligent, well thought out, and supremely courteous one I've ever gotten. I thank you and admire you for that.

I'll answer the point you made about how Dr. Humphreys deals with what is the meaning of "days" (Hebrew yom) in Genesis. It's really a very direct principle, that of using passages where the context makes the meaning clear to determine the true meaning of the word. And the Hebrew yom is much like the English "day". Both can have three meanings - an indeterminate period of time ("in my father's day"). They can also mean the period from sunrise to sunset ("you can see better as you drive during the day"). And they can mean a 24 hour period ("the team can deliver that code in 23 days").

So from that, doing a detailed analysis on everywhere in the Old Testament that the word "yom" appears, there are two significant findings. First, any time a number is used with the word, it means a 24-hour time period. Second, any time "evening and morning" is used, it also means a 24-hour time period.

In Genesis 1, "yom" is used with both a number (the second day) and the "evening and morning" modifiers. So there is double evidence that it does intend to mean a 24-hour period. It's from that point that 6-day creationists tend to take its meaning to be what it appears to be.

And indeed Dr. Humphreys may be way wrong about while holes. My scientific background leads me to hope that he's right about them, since it would be such a nice answer. He has other interesting theories as well; his paper about the decay of the magnetic field energy is one I find quite fascinating.

I fervently hope that your openness to the truth will lead you to find it.

Oops the link didn't make it in there, here it is

Using data from the International Geomagnetic Reference Field (IGRF) I show that from 1970 to 2000, the dipole part of the field steadily lost 235 ± 5 billion megajoules of energy, while the non-dipole part gained only 129 ± 8 billion megajoules. Over that 30-year period, the net loss of energy from all observable parts of the field was 1.41 ± 0.16 %. At that rate, the field would lose half its energy every 1465 ± 166 years.

Other species of birds found on the islands exhibit great changes among their populations over periods as short as a few years. I wish I could find a reference to research done on this (I first heard of it from this month's Scientific American Frontiers). The short of it that variances in food supplies (seeds) over just a few years directly affects the overall appearance (physical size) of future generations of the birds. Smaller birds have less body to fuel, require fewer seeds to feed themselves, and possess beaks more adapted to cracking open their small food. Larger birds, when all available food is small seeds, can't eat enough to stay alive. The larger of the species die out, the smaller reproduce, and the physical properties of the smaller population are passed on to the following generation. Over periods of just 3 or 4 years, the populations of this island physically change to adapt to changes in their environment. The average bird becomes smaller. In food surplus (when larger, more varied foods are available), the opposite happens.

If you're up for a good laugh, visit Creation Research Society, a bunch of "scientists" out to prove that Creation is right. They have an scanning electron microscope, so I guess it's just a matter of time before they re-publish the Bible and prove science wrong, right?

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Other species of birds found on the islands exhibit great changes among their populations over periods as short as a few years. I wish I could find a reference to research done on this (I first heard of it from this month's Scientific American Frontiers). The short of it that variances in food supplies (seeds) over just a few years directly affects the overall appearance (physical size) of future generations of the birds. Smaller birds have less body to fuel, require fewer seeds to feed themselves, and possess beaks more adapted to cracking open their small food. Larger birds, when all available food is small seeds, can't eat enough to stay alive. The larger of the species die out, the smaller reproduce, and the physical properties of the smaller population are passed on to the following generation. Over periods of just 3 or 4 years, the populations of this island physically change to adapt to changes in their environment. The average bird becomes smaller. In food surplus (when larger, more varied foods are available), the opposite happens.

If you're up for a good laugh, visit Creation Research Society, a bunch of "scientists" out to prove that Creation is right. They have an scanning electron microscope, so I guess it's just a matter of time before they re-publish the Bible and prove science wrong, right?

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Yes, that is a plausible compromise between the Bible's decription of creation, and the theories of evolution. Many people I know subscribe to such ideas. The people who are calling themselves "Creationists", and are trying to get Creationism taught in schools along with or instead of Evolution Theory, are saying something completely different. To summarize, from The Creation Research Society (one of the big organizations pushing for creationism education), Creationism consists of the following principles:
* The Bible is the written Word of God. Genesis is simple historical truth, and should be taken literally;
* All basic types of creatures, including man, are direct creations of God. Minor changes within those types might have occured since then;
* Noah's flood was a historic, worldwide event;
* Christ is the savior.

As you can see, this agenda is pretty hard to swallow for anyone non-christian. It is also solidly outside the realm of science, and should not be taught as such, particularly not in the public schools, which are forbidden to endorse one religion over others.

In addition, Creationists generally either assign a specific age to the earth of something between five and six thousand years old, or at least say it's no more than ten thousand years old. This flies in the face of hard observational evidence and theories of not just evolution, but physics, chemistry, astronomy and geology.

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