Science Behind Things

Science Behind Christmas

Are you sick and tired of the over-commercialization and political correctness of Christmas? If so, I think you’ll like this video:

Astronomical Highlights for Tuesday, July 24th, 2007

The Moon and Scorpius

The Moon shines in the head of Scorpius near Jupiter and Antares. Scorpius is one of the constellations of the zodiac, and lies between Libra to the west and Sagittarius to the east. It is a large constellation located in the southern hemisphere near the center of the Milky Way. Antares is the brightest star in the constellation Scorpius and the sixteenth or fifteenth brightest star in the nighttime sky (depending on who you ask). It is one of the four brightest stars near the ecliptic.

Eclipse of Herculis

Tonight, from North America, you may have a chance of timing an eclipse of SZ Herculis high overhead as it dims from magnitude 10.5 to 12 and back. You’ll need a telescope or binoculars to see it.

Gulf of Mexico’s “Dead Zone” Might Grow in 2007

Fed by melted snow, spring flooding, farm chemicals and other runoff needed for biofuel being produced, all coming from the Mississippi and Atchafalaya rivers, the Gulf of Mexico has a huge section where dissolved oxygen is consumed by algae faster than it can be replenished from the surface, resulting in an 8,500 square mile section of the Gulf (about the size of New Jersey) not having enough oxygen to support fish, which can severely affect the fishing industry.  It happens each year, but 2007 could be the worst since measurements began in 1985 when the dead zone was only half this year’s expected size, and even that of 2002 when the zone was a record largest size.  The zone grows between the spring and July/August each year, unless it is disrupted by hurricanes.  2007 is expected to be an active hurricane season.  Otherwise it is expected to grow slightly larger than 2002′s enormous size.

A Cool Way To Stay Cool

What do you do if many hundreds of people in skyscrapers in New York need cool air on a hot day when electric power companies can’t keep up?  Send everybody home?  Nope.  You spend the night before, when electricity usage is low, freezing tanks of hundreds of gallons of water, and then circulating that cool temperature throughout the building the next day.  And then do it all over again that night.  It works very well, and is especially important since the city consumes more power on hot summer days than the entire nation of Chile!

It is environmentally friendly, and not dependent on many moving parts during the hot days, because all the ice has to do is melt.

Response To a Recent Scientific American Article

Last night I read an article from Scientific American (SA), and was astonished at the great number of errors. The article was itself a response to Answers in Genesis’ new Creation Museum, which has been attracting so much attention. SA has responded by continuing to teach the unscientific lie of biological evolution, but in a new way. I’ll respond to some key areas of the SA article:

“The intelligent design (ID) movement that sprang from creationism in the 1990s gives an even more vague but equally unscientific explanation for natural history”

Actually, that is not true. The historical roots of the ID movement lie in the natural theology movement of the 18th and 19th centuries. William Paley (1743–1805) reasoned that if one walked across a field and came upon a watch, the assumption would be that there had to be a watchmaker—the complexity and purpose of the watch points to the fact that it is not the result of undirected, unintelligent causes, but the product of a designer. Take a machine of any kind, dismantle it, put it in a box, and either shake it and wait a really long time, or even shake the box whenever you want to and wait a really long time. Even wait millions or perhaps even billions of years. What happens? Nothing. The parts will not ever assemble themselves into a complex machine, no matter how much time you give them. A watch is clearly designed and constructed by a watchmaker, a man with expertise who has taken the time to assemble it. The universe is the same way, especially in light of the first and second laws of thermodynamics, which teach the universally accepted truths that (1) matter and energy cannot be created or destroyed, and (2) all things tend toward disorder.

Has anyone ever observed biological evolution? No. Is there one thing, just one thing, that evolutionists can say they know for sure about biological evolution? That question was presented to the geology staff at the Field Museum of Natural History, and to the very prestigious Evolutionary Morphology seminar in the University of Chicago. What did those experts say? Did they rattle off lots of impressive technical jargon, clearly explaining many proofs of biological evolution? No. Initially they, experts!, said nothing. That’s right, nothing. Finally, one of them said he knew that biological evolution should not be taught in public schools.

Next comment:

“Under pressure from these kinds of groups, the Kansas State Board of Education in 2005 approved a curriculum that allowed the public schools to include completely unfounded challenges to the theory of evolution.”

According to the strictest definition of science, neither evolution nor creationism is science:

“Knowledge covering general truths of the operation of general laws, esp. as obtained and tested through [the] scientific method [and] concerned with the physical world”

The scientific method, in turn is defined in like manner:

“Science involves observed facts and demonstrated laws. The scientific method involves experimental reproducibility, with like causes producing like effects. Science is knowledge, not inference, speculation or extrapolation. True science is necessarily limited to the measurement and study of present phenomena and processes. Data that have been observed in the present, or that have been recorded by human observers in the historic past, are properly called scientific data. Laws that have been deduced from these data, that satisfactorily correlate the pertinent data, and that have predictive value for the correlation of similar data obtained from like experiments in the future, are properly regarded as scientific laws”

Both Evolutionism and Creationism are belief systems that require faith, but, quite honestly, Creationism simply makes more sense, explaining more mysteries than Evolutionism does.

Third observation:

“A giant wall of nucleotides [at one of the evolutionist museums] compares the DNA of humans with …chimpanzees. …to illustrate the 1 percent difference between human and chimp genomes”

What isn’t mentioned is that the 1% difference can’t happen in the amount of time required by evolution. Occasional DNA mutations are almost always either fatal or neutral. (1) Biological evolution of a chimpanzee to a man would require so many rarely occurring mutations that billions of years would be needed, even though evolutionists say that life began only millions of years ago. (2) There are no transitional man/chimpanzees in the fossil record or in the world today, a real problem for evolutionists. (3) The second law of thermodynamics, which has never been observed being violated, would be useless by chimpanzees turning into men over billions of years. (4) A chimpanzee turning into a man, even over long periods of time, clearly requires a “watchmaker”, but that isn’t allowed in the evolutionary mindset because it looks too much like God, and so is immediately rejected. Conclusion: biological evolution of a chimpanzee to a man would require, literally, a miracle.

Fourth, the evolutionist exhibits have some items belonging to Charles Darwin, one of which is a Bible, which they claim is used,

“…to quietly bring home the fact that religion and science can coexist. There is also a video of scientists discussing why creationism is not a viable alternative to the theory of evolution”

Almost in the same breath, the writer of the SA article says evolution and the Bible can coexist, and yet creationism (which he claims is not science) is not able to coexist with evolution. Ironically, it is absolutely true that science and the Bible have been peacefully coexisting since the creation of the world, but that science fiction masquerading as science today is an enemy of the Bible and of true science. A “Darwin” curator claims that, “…evolution, …is simply the only plausible thesis we have for explaining what we see in nature today”. I couldn’t disagree with him more. Obviously he has not even looked into what creationism teaches, but has allowed his thoughts to be clouded by his evolutionary thinking, which must not ever allow God in. What about you?

Lastly, I’ll address the fallacious claim made by the SA article writer, who does not know true science, as discussed above, and also doesn’t know this country’s U.S. Constitution, when he says,

“…their [Creationist] claims have no scientific basis or that the U.S. Constitution mandates a separation of church and state”

The United States Constitution most certainly does not ever say anything about separation of church and state, but it does say some other things that are conveniently ignored by many such as evolutionists,

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;”

Is opening a privately funded museum open to all who wish to visit a violation of the U.S. Constitution? Or is it an example of freely exercising [the Christian] religion?

The idea of separation of church and state comes not from the U.S. Constitution, but rather from a letter written by Thomas Jefferson, a man who had nothing to do with the writing of the U.S. Constitution. He wrote of a wall of separation, which is to keep the state from intruding into the affairs of the church! Have you ever read the letter, or are you basing your opinion on what others are saying for you? According to Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, the U.S. Congress, the U.S. Senate, The U.S. Supreme Court, the U.S. Military, U.S. schools and most other United States private and public organizations, in the 1700′s, 1800′s and 1900′s, God belongs in the classroom, the courtroom, the White House, the science classroom, and everywhere else in His creation.

The 10 Commandments are on the wall of the U.S. Supreme Court (hidden behind a curtain), Moses carrying the 10 Commandments is carved into the outside of the U.S. Supreme Court building, Congress and the Senate even today still open their sessions with a chaplin praying, the U.S. military still has chaplins serving within their ranks, court proceedings still begin with someone putting his hand on the Holy Bible and swearing “so help me God” to tell the truth, our money still says, “In God We Trust”, the writings of many high officials of early America clearly show that Christian thinking was very much a part of everyday life in the office as well as in the church building and home, and the list goes on.

How could so many people in the very day that the U.S. Constitution, Bill of Rights and Declaration of Independence were written have not seen things the way so many secular people do today? Because many today are trying to get this country away from Christianity, to reeducate our children to not even know that that Christianity was a major part of this country’s history.

So in summary, when you read an article proclaiming to be scientific, no matter the credentials, I plead with you to be careful, check your sources, even reading the primary sources yourself, and use your mind. Don’t let others think for you. Use the mind God has given you.

Extrasolar Planet Search in Spain

One of the world’s most powerful telescopes, costing $143 million and taking 7 years to complete, perched more than a mile up on the Roque de los Muchachos peak in the Atlantic island of La Palma (Canary Islands), with 12 of its eventual 36 total hexagonal mirrors in place, will begin looking for extrasolar planets (those outside our solar system) at 11 PM tonight.  It’s called first light, and it is an exciting time for astronomers.  The 36 foot mirror size will enable the telescope to see extremely faint reflected light coming from nearby planets within a few lightyears circling our nearest neighboring stars once it is completed in another year.

The Canary Islands Astrophysics Institute declared, “One of its aims is to find planets similar to ours in other solar systems”.  Although similar planets may be found, I predict again that no life will will be found.  But I predict that great beauty will be found, since God is a Master Designer of His universe.

Science Behind Birthdays

Today is my birthday.  My do people celebrate birthdays?  Why the cake, ice cream and presents?  Aren’t we getting older and closer to death?

Well, the Bible says that children are a gift from God.  They’re not to be locked up in a daycare center so we can have our careers first.  They’re precious, a lot of work, requiring a lot of input and sacrifice, and our responsibility.  They’re gifts from God, and He requires us to care for them.

So we celebrate birthdays with cake, ice cream and presents to express our thankfulness to God for our little ones.  And when we get bigger, sometimes we still like cake, ice cream and presents

I praise God for all the children in my life: the 3rd and 4th graders I teach each month in Sunday school, my nephews and niece, and all the others I’ve not seen in a while.

Listening To An iPod May Be dangerous To Your Health

Going out for a jog during a thunderstorm is dangerous, but there’s something you can do to increase the danger (don’t try this away from home as you’re jogging!) Recently, a Canadian jogger suffered wishbone-shaped chest and neck burns, ruptured eardrums and a broken jaw when lightning traveled through his iPod’s earphone wires. And it doesn’t stop there. Even just being outside walking in your front yard during a thunderstorm, or even being under blue skies many miles away from storm clouds, can result in similar injuries. A young man in Colorado was struck by lightning while mowing his lawn, and he received similar burns as the Canadian man mentioned above. And it doesn’t stop with iPods. People using beepers, Walkmen, cell phones and laptop computers have also occasionally been struck by lightning.

Lightning usually flashes over the skin when a person is struck (called, interestingly, the skin effect), but if he’s got any metal jewelry on his person, coins in his pocket, or an electronic device hanging out of his cargo shorts, he may be toast, because the lightning, which isn’t necessarily attracted to the metal from a distance, can cause contact burns and exacerbate the damage once it does strike him.

Eardrum ruptures are considered the most common ear injury in lightning-strike victims, occurring in 5 – 50% of patients, according to various estimates, even if there’s no electronic device involved.

So remember the warning, “When thunder roars, go indoors”, and go ahead and use your iPod, beeper, Walkman, cell phone and laptop in the safety of your home.  And hopefully you’ve got some good tunes to listen to as you exercise on your elliptical machine.

International Space Station Crew to Test New Oxygen Generator

The 3-member crew of the International Space Station (ISS) needs to prepare for larger crews of six in 2009, not only with an extra toilet (see my earlier post), but also with an extra oxygen generator, which was delivered in July of last year. The Russian “Elektron” O₂ generator has been the only one in use up to this point. The new 1,500 pound O₂ generator breaks down water into its two constituent elements (using electrolysis): hydrogen and oxygen. The hydrogen is then dumped overboard. The brand new O₂ generator is needed only for testing right now, but it can still produce 40 hours of oxygen. The test was scheduled to begin yesterday at 3 PM EDT.

How Large is the Universe?

Evolutionists insist that the universe is finite in size and perhaps no larger than 1 trillion lightyears across, and yet in this image, taken by the Hubble Space telescope showing galaxies about as distant and faint as Hubble can go, there is no clear evidence that more distant galaxies are somehow “less developed”.

Additionally, the Bible says some things that strongly challenge modern views of the universe, namely that the universe is much, much larger than we are told from secular sources.  What do the following Biblical passages clearly say about the size of the universe?

“For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:9)

“Is not God in the height of heaven?  And see the highest stars, how lofty they are!” (Job 22:12)

“Thus says the LORD: ‘If heaven above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth searched out beneath, I will also cast off all the seed of Israel or all that they have done, says the LORD’.”

What do those Bible passages say?  They are comparing Almighty God with the mere created universe.  If God is sovereign (and He is), then the universe is much larger, and probably infinite in size.  That goes against what we’ve been taught all our lives, but the word of God must be our guide.  It has always been ahead of the world of science, enabling Christopher Columbus to believe against the rest of the world that the world was round and not flat, and enabling other Bible believing Christians to also think ahead of the latest fads and ideas of the world.  May it be our guide today as well as evolutionists continue to embrace illogical, fanciful ideas.