For Atheists?

Question

I am a Christian, and i was reading some science based articles that actually supported religion. The following is one of the paragraphs and i was wondering if you could give your opinion on it. It argues the fact that the earth isnt as old as other scientists are saying - which supports the bible's timeline

Decay of Earth's Magnetic Field... Dr. Thomas Barnes, Emeritus Professor of Physics at the University of Texas at El Paso, has published the definitive work in this field.4 Scientific observations since 1829 have shown that the earth's magnetic field has been measurably decaying at an exponential rate, demonstrating its half-life to be approximately 1,400 years. In practical application its strength 20,000 years ago would approximate that of a magnetic star. Under those conditions many of the molecules necessary for life processes could not form. These data demonstrate that earth's entire history is young, within a few thousand of years.

Answer 1

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/magfields.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CD/CD701.html

Answer 2

Posting a science question in the religion and spirituality section often means the asker does not really want an answer. His goal is to ask a question that he believes proves some scientific knowledge to be wrong, or that science does not yet answer, and make the implicit claim that the only other explanation is a god, and specifically, the same god he happens to believe in.

It's the "god of the gaps" - intellectually bankrupt, since it favors ignorance instead of knowledge, and because of the contained logical fallacy.

However, on the off chance that you really want to know the answer:

Claim CD701:
The earth's magnetic field is decaying at a rate indicating that the earth must be young.
Source:
Barnes, Thomas G. 1973. Origin and destiny of Earth's magnetic field, ICR Technical Monograph No. 4. El Cajon, CA: ICR.
Humphreys, D. Russell. 1986. Reversals of the Earth's magnetic field during the Genesis Flood. Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Creationism, Creation Science Fellowship, 2: 113-126.
Humphreys, Russell. 1993. The Earth's magnetic field is young. Impact 242 (Aug.). http://www.icr.org/index.php?module=articles&action=view&ID=371
Response:

1. The earth's magnetic field is known to have varied in intensity (Gee et al. 2000) and reversed in polarity numerous times in the earth's history. This is entirely consistent with conventional models (Glatzmaier and Roberts 1995) and geophysical evidence (Song and Richards 1996) of the earth's interior. Measurements of magnetic field field direction and intensity show little or no change between 1590 and 1840; the variation in the magnetic field is relatively recent, probably indicating that the field's polarity is reversing again (Gubbins et al. 2006).

2. Empirical measurement of the earth's magnetic field does not show exponential decay. Yes, an exponential curve can be fit to historical measurements, but an exponential curve can be fit to any set of points. A straight line fits better.

3. T. G. Barnes (1973) relied on an obsolete model of the earth's interior. He viewed it as a spherical conductor (the earth's core) undergoing simple decay of an electrical current. However, the evidence supports Elsasser's dynamo model, in which the magnetic field is caused by a dynamo, with most of the "current" caused by convection. Barnes cited Cowling to try to discredit Elsasser, but Cowling's theorem is consistent with the dynamo earth.

4. Barnes measures only the dipole component of the total magnetic field, but the dipole field is not a measure of total field strength. The dipole field can vary as the total magnetic field strength remains unchanged.

Links:
Matson, Dave E., 1994. How good are those young-earth arguments? http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/hovind/howgood-yea.html#proof11

Thompson, Tim, 1997. On creation science and the alleged decay of the earth's magnetic field. http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/magfields.html
References:

1. Barnes, Thomas G. 1973. Origin and destiny of Earth's magnetic field, ICR Technical Monograph No. 4.
2. Gee, J. S. et al. 2000. Geomagnetic intensity variations over the past 780 kyr obtained from near-seafloor magnetic anomalies. Nature 408: 827-832.
3. Glatzmaier, G. A. and P. H. Roberts. 1995. A three-dimensional self-consistent computer simulation of a geomagnetic field reversal. Nature 377: 203-209.
4. Gubbins, David, Adrian L. Jones and Christopher C. Finlay. 2006. Fall in Earth's magnetic field is erratic. Science 312: 900-902. See also: Kono, Masaru. 2006. Ships' logs and archeomagnetism. Science 312: 865-866.
5. Song, X. and P. G. Richards. 1996. Seismological evidence for differential rotation of the earth's inner core. Nature 382: 221-224.

Further Reading:
Brush, Stephen G., 1983. Ghosts from the nineteenth century: Creationist arguments for a young earth. In Godfrey, 1983, Scientists Confront Creationism, New York: W. W. Norton & Company, pp. 49-84.

Answer 3

Mmmm i guess they smoked something, if you relate the size of a star to the size of a planet, numbers don't match, as the magnetic field on earth is made by the rotating nuclei, and a star has a munch more active nuclei the numbers don't match again. So do they care to give real proof instead of measurements taken close to a magnetic inversion? because we are close to a magnetic inversion magnetic fields decrease exponentially, they'll get to zero, increase exponentially and return to normal. You must remember just because some people are scientists doesn't make them right. You must think critically which theories you accept, but don't take my comment as "we wont believe what any scientist says", what i mean is that if you get slapped in the face by evidence buy it, if there's no evidence and the theory sounds stupid, it might as well be stupid.

Answer 4

It is a common fact that the Earth's magnetic field waxes and wanes in strength. The field has even changed polarity on many occasions in the past.

Using this method to date the earth is ridiculous. If you want accurate radiometric dating why not try Potassium-Argon or Uranium-Lead dating? The latter has an error rate of less than 0.1% over 3 000 000 000 years.

I will give you credit for finding a scientific article that supported creationism, they can't be too easy to come by.

Pity it's a load of hooey.

Answer 5

1.) His book was written over 70 years ago. Since then it's been thoroughly debunked as junk science.

2.) Barnes is not a doctor. He was awarded an *honorary* doctorate from Hardin-Simmons University (formerly the Abilene Baptist University), a Christian school. Honorary doctorates aren't much more than decorations. No one takes them to be the equivalent of one that is earned academically. They are awarded in a ceremony to show the institution's appreciation for the work the individual has done. In this case, a Christian institution awarded an honorary doctorate to Barnes for his work affirming the fundamentalist Christian view of the world.

Answer 6

Dear you really should know about a subject before you try to make comments. This is the problem with christianity. I know because I used to be one. Preachers, ministers etc. discourage the congregation from reading, watching or listening to anything that will allow the devil to creep into their hearts. You will never learn truths by reading , watching and listening to only one point of view. Open your mind.

Answer 7

Do you have the full text of the article?

The Earth's magnetic field goes through cycles -- it actually flips every few thousand years, and there's evidence that shows it flipping thousands of times.

Answer 8

Don't forget that the poles flip flop over hundreds of thousands of years. The bible also says that the Earth does not move. Seeing that we are traveling 60,000 MPH around the sun kind of debunks that one. On top of that, we going roughly 490,000 MPH around the Milky Way center.

Now should I go into Dr. Barnes? Did you know that his degree was an "honorary" one? Also fluctuations in our magnetic fields is common, but they occur over such lengthy periods that we would be fools to say it is going to go away let alone involve creationism as proof (or visa versa). We can look at rocks and infer what the magnetic field was hundreds of thousands of years ago. That data totally disproves Dr. Barnes theory.

Answer 9

What utter BS.
Bad science.

"Today, most of his theories within the book have been discredited, largely as Barnes failed to take experimental uncertainties into account and used an obsolete model of the interior of the earth."
Wikipedia

Answer 10

Well there's still mounds of evidence that goes the other way, but to be honest I don't know enough about science to answer that well..........but luckily there is a science section if your intentions are honest.

Answer 11

You lost me on "science-based articles."

Intelligent Design is not based on science. It is religious-based pseudoscience.

If I were to rewrite Dawkin's "The Selfish Gene" using lots of "thy"s and "thou shalt"s, would you accept it as religious-based articles that supported evolution?