No - These Creationist Dopes Don't Merit Equal Time on 'COSMOS'

Pseudo-scientist Jason Lisle (left): His creationist groupies would likely prefer to have him get "equal time" to Neil deGrasse Tyson in the new 'Cosmos' series. Meanwhile, Neil de Grasse Tyson needs to stop trying to placate religionists!

Incredibly, the creationists are demanding "equal time" on COSMOS. Horror of horrors, the show doesn’t contain creationist theories about the universe’s origins. On Thursday, Danny Falkner, of Answers in Genesis, took to “The Janet Mefferd Show” to make a plea for “balance.”     This even as the fundies are also complaining about the new movie, 'Noah', which they insist "Isn't faithful to Genesis". Hello! Genesis is a fairy tale, an elaborate myth that no person with I.Q. over room temperature takes literally. It's a story rife with metaphors and exaggerations. I mean, sheesh, a guy living over 900 years!

Falkner complained, “I don’t recall seeing any interviews with people – that may yet come – but it’s based upon the narration from the host and then various types of little video clips of various things, cartoons and things like that.”
 

Mefferd suggested that “Cosmos” bring in a different “scientific” point of view.  She bloviated:
 

“Boy, but when you have so many scientists who simply do not accept Darwinian evolution, it seems to me that that might be something to throw in there. You know, the old, ‘some scientists say this, others disagree and think this,’ but that’s not even allowed.”
 

But why would it not be "allowed"? Well because creationism is not science!  Let's just take the case of Young Sun - Young Earth creationist Jason Lisle, who in one dvd: “The Young Sun” , attempts to convince gullible viewers that he can show the Sun is “young” so fits in with the Genesis fairy tale that the Sun can be no more than 6,000 years old (since in Genesis the Earth was made before the Sun, an impossibility anyway as I’ve shown in a number of blogs). Why is this impossible?

Because to embrace such codswallop would require rejecting most of modern stellar physics predicated on nuclear fusion. A key quantity in obtaining these time scales is the energy liberated per (nuclear fusion) chain defined as:

W(r) = rE, or W = (rE)/ r


which is in ergs/gram for example. (I.e. the total ergs of stellar energy given off per gram of stellar matter available for reaction.)  E is found from specific nuclear fusion reactions, such as p + p -> D2 +e(+) +v, where two protons fuse to yield deuterium, a positron and a neutrino(v). The key quantity is r, defined as the reactions/cm³. Obviously, the greater this value the shorter the energy generation time scale and the smaller the value the longer it will take. It is defined (see, e.g. Astrophysical Concepts, p. 331), by Martin Harwitt:
 

r = B (r)²  X1X2/ T^1.5 * exp^-3[2π^4e^4mH (Z1²)(Z2²)A'/ h^2kT]^1/3

 

where B is a proportionality constant, r is the density, h is Planck's constant (e.g. h = 6.62 x 10^-27  erg-sec), k is Boltzmann's constant = 1.38 x 10^-16 erg/K), T is absolute temperature of the reaction, i.e. in K deg, and X1 and X2 are the concentrations associated with atomic numbers Z1, Z2 while A' is the reduced atomic mass, i.e. A' = (A1 A2)/ (A1 + A2).

 Then working out 'r' for the proton-proton fusion cycle one can (after a lot of work) obtain the time scales for each chain part and the energy yielded for each, viz. (cf. Harwit, op. cit., p. 336). One finds that just for the final helium fusion chain:

He3 + He3 -> He4 + 2H1 [12.85 MeV, Time - 6 million years]

Thus, this fusion branch alone takes almost 1,000 times longer than Lisle's time of 6,000 years, as the supposed maximum age of the Sun.

More importantly, to reject stellar nuclear fusion is to reject the entire foundation of modern stellar astrophysics, which in fact allows us to construct consistent stellar models (based on pressure-gravity balance at each layer).  Indeed, in his Ph.D. thesis Lisle  even acknowledged as much!  Therein he concedes to the above basis for nuclear fusion occurring in the Sun! So one is forced to ask if he really believes that or if he LIED in his dissertation? If he lied then his Ph.D. isn’t worth an ounce of doggie lickspittle,  I don’t care which institution awarded it.

The fact that just the helium fusion time scale blows Lisle's "Young Sun" idiocy out the window, ought to give all his groupies and followers pause, but see,  they aren't really invested in genuine science but in religious belief. They dote on Lisle because he feeds their supernatural fictions and false beliefs via pseudo-scientific claptrap - which most wouldn't understand if their lives depended on it.

Unfortunately, this kerfuffle seemingly has even driven Neil deGrasse Tyson into making capitulatory statements which Carl Sagan never would have volunteered in a million years. On WNYC’s Brian Lehrer show, Tyson said that there are "plenty of scientists who pray to a god, and are fully functioning” because they "don’t use religious text as scientific evidence."
This marks a valiant effort to placate the fundies, but alas is disingenuous. There are not "plenty of scientists who pray to any god". Pew Religious Forum surveys conducted since 2000 have in fact shown that the majority (60-70 percent) of physical scientists are atheistic or at least agnostic. They acknowledge no personal deity. And hence, Tyson didn't have to offer this palliative at all.   Yes, I have known a few who are religious, and it is true they don't invoke their religion to advance their science. But on the other hand, I am aware of those who have, because it's allowed them to get gigs they otherwise  couldn't  - because of too much competition in the mainstream.  Hence, they instead carved out a creationist 'niche' and were accepted by one creationist (or ID) outfit or another, whether Discovery Institute, Answers in Genesis, The Creation Science Institute or whatever.

Tyson also went on to state:

"The issue there is not religion versus non-religion, or religion versus science. The issue is ideas that are different versus dogma."

This is a noble effort to be diplomatic but it simply doesn't work, doesn't compute. Science - based on naturalism and Materialism - is counterpoised to ANY system based on supernaturalism. It's like trying to mix oil and water. It is a fool's errand 

Religion encourages and indeed, DEMANDS one sacrifice one's mind to belief and dogma. Dogma is part of religion, at least most of them, as is "sacred revelation" (e.g. in "sacred scriptures")  which religious types are obliged to accept and do so unquestioningly. This is one of the reasons I left the Catholic religion behind.  I couldn't abide their ridiculous dogmas, whether virgin birth, immaculate conception, transubstantiation or whatever. None of it made sense, and given the Church's hierarchy didn't allow 'free thought" I had no choice. Either one is honest with himself or not.

Trying to frame the  inherent opposition as "ideas that are different" versus "dogma",  therefore,  is not only misleading but false -  a misdirected effort to 'square the circle'.  It will not win any more religious viewers for 'Cosmos', and it may well alienate many scientists as they witness a kind of retreat in the form of euphemistic, verbal cowardice, i.e. to stand up to the religious bullies.

Hence, since religions discourage free inquiry - which is the essence of science -   then one cannot have harmony or consilience between religion and science. Carl Sagan actually made this clear in Episode One ('The Shores of the Cosmic Ocean') in his original Cosmos series-  examining Hypatia and how she was put to death by religious zealots for defending that spirit of inquiry.

 

Studying Solar 'Twins' to Forecast the Sun's Future

A relatively little known area of astronomical inquiry is the careful study of solar "twins' in order to see what lies ahead for our own star. Basically, the method entails finding stars of the same spectral class and chemical composition, mass as the Sun and then assessing their age to infer what lies ahead for our star.

Our own Sun is about 4.6 billion years old (all the 'young Sun' nonsense of fake astrophysicists like Jason Lisle  to the contrary,  see e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2011/07/jason-lisle-astrophysicist-dont-make-me.html

One example for study is the star HIP 102152, which turns out to be the closest match to our Sun ever found in terms of mass, temperature and chemical composition. The difference is that it's almost 4 billion years older providing a glimpse into our own star as it ages. One particular insight concerns the element lithium. It exists in high amounts on some stars but is virtually absent in the Sun.

Interestingly, solar twin researchers have found HIP 102152 contains even less lithium than the Sun, suggesting that as our star ages its lithium content will be further reduced. This is backed up by the finding that a previously discovered solar twin named 18 Scorpii has more. Taken together the findings suggest that the hot interiors of sunlike stars - where nuclear fusion occurs - gradually burn through lithium as the stars age.

Also like the Sun, HIP 102152 has low amounts of iron, magnesium and silicon, elements which tend to make up the bulk of rocky planets such as Earth. The only way they would have been found on Earth - or even in the Sun - is because the latter evolved from a solar nebula replete with the residue of those higher atomic number elements cast off in supernovae.

More research needs to be done to confirm and expand insights, but so far - at 8.2b years old- HIP 102152 is the oldest solar twin ever found. Meanwhile, in less than 2 billion years the Sun will exhaust the hydrogen in its core via the same nuclear fusion. When this happens it will balloon to hundreds of times its current diameter, engulfing the Earth and likely Mars too.  This is what we call the 'Red Giant' phase.

This ensues because  a new "burning" phase is ushered in (at higher temperature), such that the following reaction series, known as the ‘triple alpha’ process, kicks in:

He 4 + He 4 -> Be 8 + gamma (- 95 keV)

Be8 + He 4 -> C 12 + gamma + 7.4 MeV

Here, the two alpha particles (helium nuclei) first fuse to give unstable beryllium and a gamma ray (gamma), with 95 keV energy absorbed. Then the beryllium fuses with a helium-4 to give carbon–12 plus a gamma ray and 7.4 MeV energy given off. In this way a new cycle commences, leading to a heavier molecular weight core. Each successive burning phase, however, is less efficient than its predecessor ( seen by comparing the energy given off in the triple alpha process to that given off in the proton-proton cycle, see e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proton%E2%80%93proton_chain_reaction)

The key thing to bear in mind in terms of a stable phase (i.e. ‘Main sequence’) star like the Sun is that it is in pressure-gravity balance. The outer gas pressure balances the weight of its overlying layers. Any condition likely to disrupt this balance is therefore of paramount interest.

In the triple alpha process the balance is disrupted such that the outer gas pressure overcomes the inward directed gravity of the overlying layers resulting in expansion.

We have to hope that if humans still exist, they will have long since abandoned Earth. If not, they will suffer the consequences.