Crank Astronomy
(Formerly "Dealing with Creationism in Astronomy")

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Latest News & Site Updates

March 17, 2012: "Dealing with Creationism in Astronomy" is Moving!

The site is moving to CrankAstronomy.org. Update your bookmarks accordingly. This version of the site at mac.com will go offline on or before June 30, 2012. Over the next few weeks, I'll be updating resource links, migrating pointers to the new site. This site will probably undergo significant organizational change as I move to incorporate new data and tools.

October 10, 2011: Site Changes

Due to the changes Apple will be making to this web service in transitioning to iCloud, I will be relocating this site. This may include renaming the site. Stay Tuned.

August 11, 2009, "Critique of Some New Setterfield Material" by G.P. Jellison

Discussion of more recent updates on Setterfield's site, including some of Setterfield's adoption of aspects of the Electric Universe claims.

August 10, 2008, Various updates.

Added the Young-Earth Creationism Population Model to Classroom Resources. I have opened a blog for more convenient reporting and discussion of the work here. I changed the formatting in my report on Hartnett's "Hubble, Bubble, Big Bang in Trouble", replacing the red font of my comments with boldface. Then there's always the miscellaneous odds-n-ends fixes.

April 15, 2008, My Visit to the Creation Forum at McLean Bible Church and a Review of "Hubble, Bubble, Big Bang in Trouble" by W.T. Bridgman

Last month I had the privilege of attending a meeting of the Creation Forum at McLean Bible Church. Here is my review of this visit and my comments on the DVD by John Hartnett and Answers in Genesis. Because this DVD discusses yet another 'relativistic' creation model, I have started a separate section on this site for information.

March 23, 2008, "The Electric Sky, Short-Circuited" by W.T. Bridgman (DRAFT 2008-Mar-22)

While something of a diversion from my regular creationism activities, the Electric Universe advocates try to exploit many of the same 'anomalies' in astronomy as the creationists. I'm releasing this version as a draft for comment. If any Electric Universe advocates wish to comment on this, they would enhance their credibility if they worked some of the undergraduate physics-level 'homework problems' at the end, and discuss the implications for the Electric Universe.

October 7, 2007, "Analysis of the Variable Lightspeed (c-Decay) Theory of Barry Setterfield" by G.P. Jellison & W.T. Bridgman

Discussion of some recent updates on Setterfield's site.

October 2, 2007, "The Cosmos in Your Pocket: How Cosmological Science Became Earth Technology. I." by W.T. Bridgman

My first in a series of papers addressing the issue of how observational sciences like astronomy can impact laboratory sciences. Some creationists like to claim that "origins science" has no impact on the science used for constructing technology. In these papers, I will document some examples that contradict this claim.

September 7, 2007, "Analysis of the Variable Lightspeed (c-Decay) Theory of Barry Setterfield" by G.P. Jellison & W.T. Bridgman

Some revisions to the previous version but most of the changes are in appendix D.

June 17, 2007, "Analysis of the Variable Lightspeed (c-Decay) Theory of Barry Setterfield" by G.P. Jellison & W.T. Bridgman

(Typos corrected, June 23, 2007) Physicist Gerard Jellison expands on Bridgman's c-decay analysis to include details on Setterfield's claims of variability in other physical constants. He also conducts a detailed examination of several of Setterfield's mathematical analyses and exposes numerous mathematical errors.

May 31, 2007, Technology from Cosmology, or "Can Creation Science Do That?"

On May 28, 2007, I had the opportunity of presenting in the Science Programming section at the Balticon Science Fiction Convention, in Baltimore, MD. The title of my talk was "The Cosmos in Your Pocket: How Cosmological Science Became Earth Technology", on the topic of science in Earth laboratories that started out as cosmological theories and observations. Meanwhile, in Petersburg, Kentucky, the AIG Creation Museum was opening. In one of the more entertaining articles in the Sunday Washington Post, Mr. Ham tries to distinguish "origin science" from what he considers "real science". This essay is my response to Mr. Ham, using just a few of the examples from my presentation. I'll be expanding on this in the coming months.

April 7, 2007

Numerous accumulated small updates as well as James Clerk Maxwell & Creationism, some fairly extensive polonium halo updates, an improved model for supernova remnants and additional pointers to data analysis tools,

November 10, 2006

Expanded c-decay presentation graphics section. Removed erroneous statements that Robert Gentry has a Ph.D. Added some more to the Links page.

August 13, 2006

Some significant updates to the section on accelerated radioactive decay including both RATE and AIG's spin on experiments with altering radioisotope reaction rates. I also discovered some very cool solar resources for dealing with the "Snowball Earth/Faint-Young Sun" claim.

July 2, 2006

New web format goes online (FINALLY!!). If you're having problems viewing this site, please contact me with info about the browser you're using. With this new configuration and scripts to drive it, I hope to get more of my preliminary efforts online.

June 12, 2006

I get interviewed by Robert Lippens of The Big Bang and Creationism podcast!!

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The Goal of this Site

In science, it is often just as important to understand why one theory fails as much as why another succeeds.

Why We Should Teach About Creationism in Science Classes.

The primary focus of this site is to deal with claims made by Young Earth (or more specifically, Young Universe) Creationism. Towards this goal, I plan to present detailed analysis of proposed cosmological models along with claims of other astronomical observations yielding a young universe (i.e. less than about 13 billion years old). I don't plan to spare the mathematical analysis, but hope that I can present it from a basic enough level that educators from a variety of levels may be able to incorporate the information presented into a lesson plan if desired. I may also provide some source codes (most likely written in C, C++, or Python) to facilitate others performing the analyses.

Too much of the Creation Science "debate" is being played out as "dueling citation lists". Because science enables you to do things: to calculate before you build, to turn esoteric mathematics like the Schroedinger Equation into transistors and microelectronics, to predict properties of the atomic nucleus based on cosmological observations, and more, we must demonstrate how these same principles rule out the claims of Creation Science. The goal of science is not rhetorical games, but understanding and applications.

This site is in no way an attempt to replace the excellent resources on this topic at the Talk.Origins website. It is an attempt to supplement those resources with more emphasis on astronomy issues. I would appreciate feedback from visitors to this site, particularly in regards to corrections and updates to the documents presented hererin as well as ideas for additional reports. Since this is a spare time project for me, updates may be sparse. However, I expect to post announcements of revisions to the talk.origins and sci.astro newsgroups.

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A Message to Classroom Instructors and Science Education Professionals

I am expanding development of products on this site to facilitate their use in science education. I am interested in the types of products (presentation graphics, animations, etc.) instructors need to for this. Please contact me at the e-mail address in the margin with your ideas.

In addition, if you are interested in receiving notifications of (significant) site updates, let me know and I will add you to the notification list.

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Site Organization

The primary product for this site will be the analysis documents for specific Creationist claims (c-decay, polonium halos, etc.) which will be distributed as PDF files to preserve the mathematical details. These documents will be periodically updated with new material but will be a self-contained resource for a particular topic. You shouldn't need to prowl all over the site trying to collect the latest updates - just download the PDF file for the particular topic. As disk space permits, historical copies of previous versions will be kept online for those interested in the evolution of a particular project.

The website itself will be updated when new content is available, along with analysis summaries and notes about work-in-progress.

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The Nature of the Problem for Creationists

Astronomy provides one of the greatest challenges for creationists claims of a young universe, particularly for a universe less than 10,000 years old. How can we see light from galaxies billions of light years away in a universe less than 10,000 years old?


Last Modified: Sun Mar 18 21:44:55 2012