How Old Is the House
Conflicts in Science by Royal T. McArdell
About the Book: How Old Is the House challenges many popular beliefs about scientific theories and scientific issues. Arguments both for and against popular theories and issues are presented so that you can make your own decisions as to what to believe. The Introduction is about a house that is either new or 150 years old- perhaps you can figure it out. Read the Introduction to the book and add your comments to the web log or send questions to the author. Items you can view are shown at the left below.
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Book Topics:
The Big Bang
Planet Earth
Our Moon
Dinosaurs & Coal
Global Warming
Energy Problems
Evolution
Intelligent Design
Bible Accuracy
Early A.D. Docs.
Natural Laws
Questions & Ans.
Web Log (Blog) Contact the Author
Web Log (Blog)
News Items:
Big Bang Issues
Revolving Univ.
More CO2
Please
Law of Biology
Evolution & Math
Early Universe
Seas Not
Rising
Early
Bible Events
Organic Soup
Polar Bears ok
The Great Flood
Creation of Time
Afterlife
Faster Than
Light
Web Log for
How Old Is the House
Comments on the Book are
listed below. They are shown in the order received, are sorted by subject and
may be edited. You
may add your suggestions, comments, questions for the author, etc. by clicking
on "Contact the Author."
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G. S. - The House in the Introduction is obviously new. The author describes
it as just built, so there can’t be any other conclusion. Real estate and county
tax records would also show that there was no house on the property previously,
so the answer is clear.
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D. B. - The house described at the beginning of the book is old. The fact
that there was no house on the site before is meaningless. If one moved an old
house to a new location, the house would still be old. If the original house had
not been completely torn down and the remaining parts of it were moved to the
new site and then fixed up using old materials, there would be no question about
its age. It would still be old. Rearranging the materials on an old house does
not make it new. In addition, the age of the materials would have to be taken
into account by an insurer or a lender, and they would place a value on the
house based on how long it would be likely to last. They would not value it like
a new property.
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G. S.
- I still think that it is new. The
age of something is not necessarily the age of its parts. Consider concrete
for example. If one took some billion year old granite from Pikes Peak and
crushed it to use for making concrete, and all of the other materials used to
make the
concrete were also old, the concrete would be considered to be new just after
it hardened even though some of the material used to make it was a billion years
old. The age of something is when it is made, not the age of the materials it
is made out of.
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K. L.
- The house in the book is probably just an example to try to infer
that the age of the earth may not be the age of the oldest measured materials.
In Chapter 2, ages of parts of the earth seem to range from under 8,000
years to over four billion years with no relationship of some parts to others,
and many of these ages do not seem to be related to volcanic activity or other easy to
explain historical events.
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L. W.
- I have a question for the author. Where did the idea of a revolving
universe come from? I never heard of this before.
Author
- I’m fairly sure that the
idea of a rotating universe was suggested on a NASA website. When I went
back to the NASA site later to get more details, I couldn’t find it again.
This concept was included in the book because it seems to fit the facts better
than an expanding universe. There are problems in using the Hubble constant to
measure the speed of expansion, because the arithmetic just doesn’t add up.
Since stability in our solar system exists with the planets orbiting around our
sun, it just seemed natural to suggest that the entire universe may be rotating
to maintain stability. Rotation in a distant star cluster, for example, could
cause some stars to be getting closer to us and others to be moving away from
us. This agrees with what some scientists appear to be observing. At the same
time the entire cluster could possibly be moving sideways in relationship to us
creating the red shift that is observed. Rotation seems to be a common
observation in space.
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L. W. -
Question for the author – What do you mean by the math for the expansion of the
Universe not adding up?
Author – The math indicates that we are moving away from the source of the Big Bang at about the speed of light or that we were here before the Big Bang occurred if the light from shortly after it happened is just reaching us now. It is illogical either way. The reason that I wrote that it doesn’t add up is that physical objects moving at the speed of light does not seem possible. If we are 13.66 billion light years removed from the source of the Big Bang, and the Hubble constant is about 45 miles per second for objects that are 3.3 million light years away, our approximate speed of movement away from the source is calculated by the following:
(13.66
billion light years) x (45 miles per second) / (3.3 million light years) =
186,273 miles per second. This is fairly close to the speed of light which is
186,000 miles per second. None of the researchers that I know of think that this is
happening. The expansion rate of the Universe has been estimated at perhaps 10 to 15 percent of the
speed of light. Astronomers do report that they can see light reaching us
now from shortly after the Big Bang which would indicate that we were here
before it happened.
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F. F. - I think that we should accept the Hubble Constant (43 miles per second
for objects 3.3 million light years away) as the speed of the expansion of the
Universe and analyze what it means. The students in your book would be correct in that
we are probably moving away from the origin at about the speed of light.
This also means that we could not see the origin - we observe that we cannot see
it and its apparent distance from us is about 13.66 billion light years away.
According to Einstein's Theory of Relativity, our actual travel time from the
origin has most likely been very short, perhaps 7000 years, because we are
traveling away from the origin at close to the speed of light. This also agrees
with other measurements of a young Earth. Since all other objects in the
sky that we can see are also moving away from the same origin but in slightly different
directions, they are of the same age as we are. This agrees with other
measurements made that the nearby stars seem to be of the same age as our Sun.
Since we cannot travel to other places at this high speed, the travel times to
get to other stars would be much longer than their actual ages. The speed
theory of the Hubble Constant appears to tell us that the Universe is very young
but has an apparent old age from our point of view.
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L. W. - Question for the author: Why do you
suppose Hubble thought that all objects were moving directly away from each
other? There are an almost infinite number of other directions that they could
all be moving in unison that would also cause red shift.
Author - The
assumption of coordinated movement in some other direction in relationship to us (like a carousel with
us not being in the center) probably would have made the situation so complex
that they couldn't build a mathematical model of the Universe. We know
that enormous red shifts are measured which indicates either very fast motion,
great distances, or most likely some of both. Since we can only see the light
that is going by us now as was mentioned in the book, the speed theory of red
shift appears to be illogical if one assumes movement only as described by the
big bang theory. Since there does not seem to be an area in the sky that
looks like an axis, the motion would probably be more complex than simple
rotation.
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J. S. – The Bible should not be mentioned in a book about scientific
theories. The Bible is not a science book.
Author- If archeology is a science, then the Bible belongs here. Although it is not
generally thought to be a history or science reference book, it pinpoints
ancient historical events and places more accurately than any other known
reference text. It was included because it is very accurate in identifying
early places where people lived and events that occurred, and there is no other
comprehensive equivalent text. I thought that readers should recognize this
fact.
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L. D. - I know that this is kind of technical, but
there is a web site
http://inventing-solutions.com/sa-short.htm that shows why there is no need
for dark matter or an accelerating expansion of the Universe as mentioned in
your book and that we should
reevaluate the Big Bang. The
author, an experimental physicist with a PhD from M.I.T. says that his
explanations fit observed data without introducing dark matter or a new source
of energy. He also states that the Hubble constant should not be used as a true
measure of velocity for large distances. He also explains “tired light,” why
the sky appears to be dark rather than light, and other observed phenomena that
appear to be problems using current theories. While his mathematics is way
over my head, his explanations are clear. I did not see anything about the
possible rotation of the Universe in his explanations. The idea of a rotating
Universe is probably too new. His web site material was copyrighted in
2002-2003.
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L. H. –
I’ve been looking at biology information on the Internet and nothing is ever
mentioned about species reproducing only their own kind. Instead the writings
are full of evolutionary ideas and speculation. This basic law of biology should have been
stressed more in the book. I also found some references that suggest that the
teaching of biology seems to be very confused and non-scientific because while there is
similarity everywhere, there is no actual evolutionary trail that one can follow and so
there is no logical path for the learning process. Everything seems to be
based on speculation.
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R. N.
– One cannot even bring up any other idea besides evolution in
public school classrooms. If you do, one of the children will tell his or her parents, and the
teacher will be disciplined. The evolutionists have a stranglehold on what is
taught. I’d give your children a copy of this book when they are old enough to
read it so that they will know that there are other viable theories to
consider. The fact that mathematics supports intelligent design but not
evolution is a real eye opener, because the theory of evolution is supposed to be a
scientific concept.
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J. T. – Greenland has had some inhabitants on a continuous basis,
particularly around the southern edges where there are no glaciers. One
interesting statistic from the on-line encyclopedia Wikipedia is that the weight
of the ice cap has depressed the central land area below sea level, so a
thinning of the ice cap may just cause the land to rise and not affect the sea
levels much at all. The other interesting statistic that I found is that just
like on Antarctica, the Greenland ice cap has been getting thicker. In the case of
Greenland, the rise is about 6 cm per year between 1994 and 2005. This is over
two feet of additional ice buildup over a ten year period. Scientists appear to
be reporting only the facts that support the politically correct view – or
perhaps it’s mainly the news services. In any event, we are not getting all of
the significant facts.
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L. H.
– In the On-Line
Encyclopedia Wikipedia, it is also reported that if all of the ice on Greenland
would melt away, sea levels would rise more than 23 feet. In the same article,
it states that the central land basin has been depressed about 1000 feet because
of the weight of the ice. Maybe the sea levels would actually drop instead of
rising if all of the ice melted because the downward pressure on the land from
the ice would
cease to exist and the additional weight of the water would be pushing down on the sea bottom
harder. In any case, the two facts conflict with one another. Also the bedrock
under land is of a generally lighter material than the bedrock under the oceans,
so more water in the oceans could push the land up more. The situation is far
from clear to me.
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J. T. –
At the NOAA website, I found that the sea level at Reykjavic, Iceland has
dropped from 1988 to 2001 by about 0.1 meter or a little under 4 inches. Perhaps
the melting of the ice is actually causing the sea levels to drop in nearby
areas. In Helsinki Finland, the sea level has been steadily falling from about
1880 to the year 2000 by about 0.2 meters or just under 8 inches over 120 years.
The graph also shows that this trend is continuing, so the idea of the melting
ice causing the sea levels to drop instead of rise may have merit, especially
for other land areas near the North Pole. These sea level graphs at NOAA are a
real eye opener and contradict the politically popular belief of more rapidly
rising sea levels. You really have to hunt around on the site to find these
graphs. They
are well hidden from casual observers.
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J. T. -
Thanks for adding the NOAA sea level chart
reference.
I went to this site on
sea levels again and studied the annual and monthly charts for about 20
locations around the world. Sea levels have generally been rising slowly and
steadily over the past 100 years but have leveled off and now even seem to be
dropping in some locations. Many levels peaked in the middle 1980's although
some had a later peak in about 1998. Most levels are back to where they
were in about the early 1980's, and others currently show no upward or downward
trend. In a few places where the land is sinking like in New Orleans, the sea
levels are, of course, rising. In many Artic locations, sea levels show a long
term downward trend. Al Gore's Inconvenient Truth appears to be
inconveniently untrue about rising sea levels.
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Author - Recent News:
Canadian Survey Reveals Polar Bear Populations Increasing - Nearly Tripled Since 1980's. This article appeared in the National Post on March 6, 2007 and refutes the idea of global warming causing polar bears to become an endangered species.
China Seen Topping U.S. Carbon
emissions in 2007 - Reuters, March 23, 2007. According to this article,
China will become the world's biggest carbon dioxide emitter in 2007. It
was previously estimated that this would not take place until approximately the
year 2010, and yet they are exempt from reducing emissions according to the
Kyoto Protocol.
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L. H. -
There is a web site titled ChristianAnswers.net where a
scientist described the find of a well preserved T.rex skeleton where some of
the parts of the leg bone were not completely fossilized. The scientist found
red blood cells inside of blood vessels In the bone. The scientist's boss
suggested that the scientist try to prove that these were not real blood cells.
This same sort of thing has been going on since at least 1992 according to
Christian Magazine. This would indicate that these creatures could not
possibly be 65 million years old and it also appears that we are not being told
the truth by some paleontologists as to the probable age of these remains. Tests
were made that indicated that the blood cells were real according to the
scientist that found the hemoglobin.
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L. H. - I found another web site
that described a location on the North Shore of Alaska where thousands of
unfossilized dinosaur bones were found. They looked and felt like old cow bones.
The discoverers of the site did not report it for twenty years because they
assumed that the bones were from bison. I don't see how these bones could
possibly be older than a few thousand years.
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B. F. - The fossilization of
bones is generally not a long process. It can occur in a few weeks or months and requires that the water be flowing at
just the right rate and contain a heavy concentration of minerals. Once the bone
is in the flow of water, the minerals replace the softer parts of the bone as it
decays. If the process takes too long, the harder bone
material will also start to decay due to contact with the water and the entire
fossil structure might wash away. Fossils often contain some of the original bone
material.
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L. H. - I've noticed that almost
every picture that accompanies a news article about the terrible increase in
carbon dioxide shows a tall smokestack emitting dense black smoke. Since
carbon dioxide is a colorless, odorless transparent gas, a little more honesty
in these articles would help a lot.
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C. R. –
The on-line encyclopedia Wikipedia had a statement under carbon dioxide that I
copied: “NOAA research estimates that 97% of atmospheric CO2
created each year is from natural sources and approximately 3% is from human
activities” (With a ref #19 at the end of the statement). When I went back there
later, this statement was gone – probably because it could possibly be used to
cast doubt on the politically correct impression that man is responsible for
much of the carbon dioxide emissions and thus global warming. So I went
directly to the horse’s mouth, the IPCC 2001 study data. There in Figure 2, it
shows that annual carbon dioxide emissions from vegetation and soils is 119
billion metric tons. Emissions from the oceans are 88 billion metric tons.
Emissions from fossil fuel and industrial processes are 6.3 billion metric tons,
and emissions from changing land use are 1.7 billion metric tons. When you add
them all up, you get 215 billion total emissions, and the emissions from mankind
are 8 billion. This means that man is responsible for 3.72 percent of the
carbon dioxide emissions, and all but about 1.5% of
the total emissions are reabsorbed annually by the land and seas according to
the IPCC data . Since this is almost the
same as the information from NOAA that was deleted, it is clear that only data
that supports the politically correct view are to be shown to the public.
Whether it comes from the IPCC or NOAA is immaterial. The IPCC data study also
indicated that the connection between the buildup of carbon dioxide and global
warming comes from their computer model. According to recent reports, this model
is giving incorrect predictions.
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L. H. - I
went to your reference site for greenhouses where it says that greenhouses add
carbon dioxide gas to stimulate plant growth. This site indicates that the optimum
carbon dioxide level in the atmosphere for plant growth is about two and
one-half times greater than the current level. Tree huggers should be concerned
if Governments try to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
It seems like we could use more carbon dioxide.
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C. R. -
Question for the author – Your book says that smog is probably prolonging the
current warming cycle. Why is that?
Author –
I do not claim to be an expert on this subject. The information in the book was
obtained from many sources. I did study heat transfer in college physics and
will give you my opinion. First of all, smog appears like low clouds – you can
see that when you stand on a high hill and look down at an urban area – much of
the smog is at low levels although some of it does extend up to higher
elevations. Also, smog is not white – it appears to be about the same as the
average color of the landscape. The amount of Incoming radiation from the sun is
probably not affected much by the presence of smog because the reflectivity is
about the same whether the smog exists or not. The earth also radiates heat
energy back into the sky. We know this because a puddle will freeze at night
when the sky is clear even when the temperature is above 32 degrees F. Since
smog (similar to a light cloud cover) blocks some of the outgoing heat radiation which is most noticeable at
night, the overall effect is probably that it
remains a little warmer on the surface of the Earth than if the smog did not
exist. Since carbon dioxide is a clear colorless gas and is in
very low concentrations (0.036% of the atmosphere), it probably has little or no effect on incoming or
outgoing radiation.
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Rev L. D. -
There is probably an error in your Bible time line regarding the birth of Jesus.
He was born before King Herod died.
Author - You
are absolutely correct. This error was also pointed out to me by one of my
reviewers, but I didn't get the correction in before the book went to the
printer. The book has Jesus' birth date in 3 BC. It should have been in 4
BC. According to the records that I am following, King Herod probably died
later in the same year that Jesus was born. I hope that enough books are sold so that there is
a second edition for corrections and additions. I also plan to add some of the web log items to the book if
there is another edition. Thank
you.
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How Old Is the House Copyright © 2007, Royal T. McArdell, All rights reserved