The Debilitating Effect of Taking Genesis Literally

[Diogenes]

The proposition for debate is that when one takes the tales of Genesis literally, one becomes intellectually disabled, at least temporarily. Taking Genesis literally requires one to reject biology (which includes evolution) and other sciences in favor of 'magic.' Geology and radiometric dating have to be rejected since the Earth formed only about 6000 years ago, during the same week the Earth was made (in a single day).

Much of the debate in the topic of Science and Religion consists of theists who insist on a literal interpretation of Genesis rejecting basic science. Most of the resulting debates are not worth engaging in.

[The Barbarian]

I am not sure if Humphreys goes through his nucleosynthesis theory.

1. EDWARD A. BOUDREAUX, B.S., M.S., PH.D. took Humphreys's idea and proposed a mechanism where Hydrogen and oxygen are used to produce all of the elements we see in nature. https://digitalcommons.cedarville.edu/c ... roceedings

If the total mass of Jupiter is unable to begin fusion of hydrogen into heavier elements, it seems foolish to suppose smaller bodies would do it.

2. I still like the idea of Walt Brown's Z-pinch creating the elements from oxygen and hydrogen because of the relative consistency of elements across the universe.

Without a mechanism or an explanation where all the resulting energy of fusion would have gone, that's pretty much a dead supposition.

‘The relative abundances of the various isotopes of different elements are repeatedly found in similar ratios in stars, in the interstellar medium, in meteorite fragments and in the earth’s crust.

Well, let's take a look...
Sun percent by mass
Hydrogen 71.0
Helium 27.1
Oxygen 0.97
Carbon 0.40
Nitrogen 0.096
Silicon 0.099
Magnesium 0.076
Neon 0.058
Iron 0.014
Sulfur 0.040

Earth's crust by mass
Oxygen 46.1
Silicon 24.2
Aluminum 8.23
Iron 5.63
(lesser amounts of lots of other elements)

So, that's wrong.

The similarity of these ratios cannot be accidental

They don't look very similar to me.

So yes evolution is definitely a secular theory. Because evolution as a mechanism for the vast diversity of life from single-cell organisms is not even hard to prove false.

In fact, the origin of life has nothing to do with evolutionary theory. Darwin even suggested that God just created the first living things. Maybe it would be useful for you to learn what evolutionary theory is?

[The Barbarian]

The fact is that 90% of all living organisms that lived on this planet have become extinct in catastrophic events that involve water.

Polystrate tree fossils show this is a false assumption. They are formed by gradual silting of trees over many, many years. Such a formation is now forming near my house, as a forest flooded by a dam is now gradually burying them year after year.

You are quite right to prove ESG wrong, but HE wrote that, not me.

In post #7 EarthScienceguy wrote:

The fact is that 90% of all living organisms that lived on this planet have become extinct in catastrophic events that involve water.

I did not and would not write this. If EarthScienceguy attributed this to me, then he does not even understand his own claims.

Sorry, wrong attribution. My bad.

[EarthScienceguy]

[Replying to The Barbarian in post #991]

If the total mass of Jupiter is unable to begin fusion of hydrogen into heavier elements, it seems foolish to suppose smaller bodies would do it.

Because you are thinking of the incorrect method in which new elements are formed. Current nucleosynthesis has many many problems.

• As the star comes into existence by electromagnetic Z-Pinch mechanism
  it’s a uniform ball of ionised Hydrogen\Helium plasma, which
  immediately starts cooling by recombination of plasma at its outer
  surface causing it to shine by releasing energy. This is straight forward
  phase transition of plasma to gas by release of energy. Initial energy
  (Current Density) imparted during this Z-Pinch is high and this will cause
  the star to glow bluish at the start of its life and as it continues to radiate
  energy its temperature decreases changing its luminosity (from bluish
  towards yellow). Initially plasma is primarily re-combing back into
  Hydrogen and Helium gas and these gases will start to form an outer
  layer of the star much like an atmosphere due to being held by gravity.
  This atmospheric layers of gases will give rise to weather type turbulent
  phenomenon on the surface of the star (much like hurricanes\tornadoes
  on earth but much more extreme in magnitudes) which will move hot
  ionised plasma on the surface in hurricane like structures causing
  massive flows of currents in these circular flows of plasma resulting in
  huge electromagnetic fields being generated https://vixra.org/pdf/1510.0472v2.pdf

There would be massive flows of currents in the big ball of water.

Here is a video that describes how stars can be formed from Z-pinch.


The Z-Pinch Morphology of Supernova 1987A and Electric Stars
https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... tric_Stars

Both of these sources are not from creationists. They are from secular theorists that see the problems with modern nucleosynthesis theory. I knew these would be coming. But these do prove that stars can be formed from Z-pinches quickly and the rest of the elements also.

In fact, the origin of life has nothing to do with evolutionary theory. Darwin even suggested that God just created the first living things. Maybe it would be useful for you to learn what evolutionary theory is?

Never said the origin of life. I said life from a single cell and that is the theory of evolution.

[The Barbarian]

[Replying to The Barbarian in post #991]

If the total mass of Jupiter is unable to begin fusion of hydrogen into heavier elements, it seems foolish to suppose smaller bodies would do it.

Because you are thinking of the incorrect method in which new elements are formed. Current nucleosynthesis has many many problems.

Turns out, we know how it works in considerable detail. We can reproduce the process in a rather small package that can incinerate a city.

• As the star comes into existence by electromagnetic Z-Pinch mechanism[/quote]
  
  Except, of course, no one can show that such a mechanism exists on a planetary scale, much less a stellar one. And Newton showed that another force is more than adequate for that purpose.
  

  it’s a uniform ball of ionised Hydrogen\Helium plasma, which
  immediately starts cooling by recombination of plasma at its outer
  surface causing it to shine by releasing energy.

  Turns out, it's easier than that. Gravity merely has to generate enough force to overcome the electrostatic force, which allows two nucleii to be pushed together into one nucleus, with the attendant release of energy. In very small systems, there is a possibility of sustained fusion, but the fact that even a partially-stable reaction requires lower plasma currents and higher magnetic energies suggests that a planet-sized system would not work.
  

  Never said the origin of life. I said life from a single cell and that is the theory of evolution.

  Darwin suggested several initial ancestors. It wasn't until genetics that we were able to confirm one ancestor.

[EarthScienceguy]

[Replying to The Barbarian in post #994]

Turns out, we know how it works in considerable detail. We can reproduce the process in a rather small package that can incinerate a city.

A that would be no. We do not understand nucleosynthesis.

Challenges in nucleosynthesis of trans-iron elements https://aip.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/1.4868239

Turns out, it's easier than that. Gravity merely has to generate enough force to overcome the electrostatic force, which allows two nucleii to be pushed together into one nucleus, with the attendant release of energy. In very small systems, there is a possibility of sustained fusion, but the fact that even a partially-stable reaction requires lower plasma currents and higher magnetic energies suggests that a planet-sized system would not work.

No, that is not easier at all. Star formation has a cooling problem. From an article from Havard. https://lweb.cfa.harvard.edu/swas/science1.html

• Star formation is governed by two dominant influences: (1) gravity, the universal force that causes all matter to attract and (2) heat. Triggered by an as yet unknown event or series of events, gravity's pull overcomes the random gas motions within an interstellar cloud, initiating a contraction phase that will last approximately 100,000 years and culminate in the formation of a star. During this collapse, the gas density increases. Collisions between atoms and molecules become more frequent and the gas temperature rises. Because the extent of the collapse is immense - more than a factor of 10 million from diffuse gas to star - the resulting gas temperature increases from about 15 degrees Kelvin (-433 degrees Fahrenheit) to over 11 million degrees Kelvin (20 million degrees Fahrenheit). The heating of the collapsing cloud poses a significant problem. Since a heated gas wants to expand, the cloud collapse could be halted or even reversed unless heat is effectively and continuously removed from the cloud.

So the process of how the cloud cools is not known. My articles were from secular sources because his problem with gravity is a well-known problem among physicists.

Darwin suggested several initial ancestors. It wasn't until genetics that we were able to confirm one ancestor.

So how many ancestors and what type?

[Diogenes]

[Replying to The Barbarian in post #994]

Turns out, we know how it works in considerable detail. We can reproduce the process in a rather small package that can incinerate a city.

A that would be no. We do not understand nucleosynthesis.

Your own ref. shows you are wrong and The Barbarian is correct with his example of the process in a thermonuclear explosion:

Elements up to the Iron peak in the solar abundance distribution can be made in hydrostatic stellar burning processes, whereas heavier elements require extremer conditions, such as explosions resulting from thermonuclear burning

https://aip.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/1.4868239

... as well as many other sources:

Three different processes in which nuclei are synthesized by the multiple capture of neutrons with energies in the keV range are reviewed and compared, namely the s-process and r-process in stars and the synthesis of very heavy nuclei in thermonuclear explosions.

https://journals.aps.org/rmp/abstract/1 ... Phys.39.59

[JoeyKnothead]

...
So the process of how the cloud cools is not known. My articles were from secular sources because his problem with gravity is a well-known problem among physicists.
...

So then, if we're using secular sources, by what process, or multiples thereof, can we show a god caused a star to form?

If we're just gonna say such as, "God thought it into existence, because that's what God says he did", then I can say, with equal validity, "I thought that star into existence, because that's what I say."

Or, I can say, "That star there, it formed because it makes me proud for it to've formed."

Why would the bible be trusted over my own declarations?

[The Barbarian]

Turns out, we know how it works in considerable detail. We can reproduce the process in a rather small package that can incinerate a city.

A that would be no. We do not understand nucleosynthesis.

Challenges in nucleosynthesis of trans-iron elements https://aip.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/1.4868239

From your link:
Elements up to the Iron peak in the solar abundance distribution can be made in hydrostatic stellar burning processes, whereas heavier elements require extremer conditions, such as explosions resulting from thermonuclear burning or rapid ejection and decompression of gravitationally condensed and heated material. The former are connected to He-shell flashes in stars with less than 8 solar masses and to type Ia supernovae, the latter are realized in core-collapse supernovae and neutron star mergers.

This is not controversial. It is, for example, how we know the solar system was formed in a shock wave from a supernova.

Turns out, it's easier than that. Gravity merely has to generate enough force to overcome the electrostatic force, which allows two nucleii to be pushed together into one nucleus, with the attendant release of energy. In very small systems, there is a possibility of sustained fusion, but the fact that even a partially-stable reaction requires lower plasma currents and higher magnetic energies suggests that a planet-sized system would not work.

No, that is not easier at all.

See above. We can actually do fusion. And as soon as the containment issues are resolved, we can use fusion for energy production.

Star formation has a cooling problem. From an article from Havard. https://lweb.cfa.harvard.edu/swas/science1.html

From your link:
Since a heated gas wants to expand, the cloud collapse could be halted or even reversed unless heat is effectively and continuously removed from the cloud.

One process which provides significant cooling involves collisions between molecules. When two molecules collide, they convert some of their thermal (kinetic) energy into a form of potential energy. The energy can be stored in the molecule either by simple rotation or by internal vibration or even by lifting one or more electrons into a "higher" less bound orbit around the atoms in the molecule. This energy can be later released by the emissions of a photon of a particular energy that is characteristic of these molecular species. Photons that escape the cloud carry this energy with them, thus helping to cool the cloud. Atoms and molecules are considered to be good coolants if (1) they readily emit photons following a collision and (2) they are present in large enough quantities that a significant number of photons are emitted. In this way the collapse of an interstellar cloud is tied to the chemical composition of that cloud.

Hydrogen and helium are, by far, the most abundant elements in interstellar clouds. However, these elements are very poor coolants because they cannot be collisionally induced to emit photons at the low gas temperatures characteristic of molecular clouds. Two decades of theoretical studies have consistently predicted that a large fraction of the total cooling is borne by a few other atoms and molecules, notably gaseous water (HO), carbon monoxide (CO), molecular oxygen (O), and atomic carbon (C).

Notice that this would not be a consideration for the remnants of a supernova explosion, since the explosion would produce by fusion, a large mass of heavy atoms.

So the process of how the cloud cools is not known.

Your linked paper says it is:
One process which provides significant cooling involves collisions between molecules. When two molecules collide, they convert some of their thermal (kinetic) energy into a form of potential energy. The energy can be stored in the molecule either by simple rotation or by internal vibration or even by lifting one or more electrons into a "higher" less bound orbit around the atoms in the molecule. This energy can be later released by the emissions of a photon of a particular energy that is characteristic of these molecular species. Photons that escape the cloud carry this energy with them, thus helping to cool the cloud. Atoms and molecules are considered to be good coolants if (1) they readily emit photons following a collision and (2) they are present in large enough quantities that a significant number of photons are emitted.

My articles were from secular sources because his problem with gravity is a well-known problem among physicists.

Apparently not, according to the paper you linked. It says the cooling takes place via atoms.

Darwin suggested several initial ancestors. It wasn't until genetics that we were able to confirm one ancestor.

So how many ancestors

Several

and what type?

Created.

[EarthScienceguy]

[Replying to The Barbarian in post #0]

From your link:
Since a heated gas wants to expand, the cloud collapse could be halted or even reversed unless heat is effectively and continuously removed from the cloud.

One process which provides significant cooling involves collisions between molecules. When two molecules collide, they convert some of their thermal (kinetic) energy into a form of potential energy. The energy can be stored in the molecule either by simple rotation or by internal vibration or even by lifting one or more electrons into a "higher" less bound orbit around the atoms in the molecule. This energy can be later released by the emissions of a photon of a particular energy that is characteristic of these molecular species. Photons that escape the cloud carry this energy with them, thus helping to cool the cloud. Atoms and molecules are considered to be good coolants if (1) they readily emit photons following a collision and (2) they are present in large enough quantities that a significant number of photons are emitted. In this way the collapse of an interstellar cloud is tied to the chemical composition of that cloud.

Hydrogen and helium are, by far, the most abundant elements in interstellar clouds. However, these elements are very poor coolants because they cannot be collisionally induced to emit photons at the low gas temperatures characteristic of molecular clouds. Two decades of theoretical studies have consistently predicted that a large fraction of the total cooling is borne by a few other atoms and molecules, notably gaseous water (HO), carbon monoxide (CO), molecular oxygen (O), and atomic carbon (C).

Notice that this would not be a consideration for the remnants of a supernova explosion, since the explosion would produce by fusion, a large mass of heavy atoms.

Yes, my link also says this.

• Triggered by an as yet unknown event or series of events, gravity's pull overcomes the random gas motions within an interstellar cloud,

And you may ask why is this unknown and they tell you.

• Thus the theory predicts that during the process in which every star has formed, the collapsing cloud should pass through a phase in which water is the dominant coolant.

So you may ask is there enough water in the medium to cool the star?

• However, we currently have little or no information on the abundance of either water or molecular oxygen because the photons of these important species are blocked by the Earth's atmosphere. In contrast, the CO molecule, which can be easily observed from ground based observatories, has been confirmed as an important coolant of the interstellar medium.

All of this is based on whether this cooling method actually works. I have my doubts.

So yes stars have a cooling problem.


This paper was a little more technical than I wanted but it was very informative. If you would have read the paper you would have found that there was no process that was complete and they all had major issues. Here are a few from like half of the paper. And I did not even list them all from that half.

• Therefore all AGB s-process nucleosynthesis models include ad hoc assumptions and phenomenological parameters describing the 13C pocket and it is not clear how these evolve for stars with different masses and compositions.

• It has been understood that the uncertainties in the present neutron capture rates are dominated by the experimental errors which are currently below 5% for most s-process captures.27 Recently it has been shown, however, that even at the comparatively low s-process temperatures excited state contributions Xexc are not negligible, especially for deformed nuclei.13 This leads to larger remaining uncertainties because the laboratory cross section only constrains a fraction of the stellar rate. The situation is even worse when the experimental “rate” is inferred not from neutron capture but its reverse reaction, (γ,n). Ground-state contributions X0 are 3 − 4 orders of magnitude smaller in (γ,n) rates than in (n,γ) ones at the same temperature.

• From the above considerations it follows that the 185W(n,γ) rate is experimentally still unconstrained at s-process temperatures and its measurement remains a challenge due to the half-life of 185W.

• Since the waiting points in each chain are disconnected from each other and equilibrium is reached almost instantaneously (on a timescale on the order of reaction timescales of 10−16 s or less), there is no well-defined reaction “path” as in the s process. An r-process path is sometimes shown, nevertheless, as an imaginary line connecting the waiting points of all isotopic chains. But also the fact that the r-process peaks are wider than the s-process ones shows that even this type of path, i.e., the waiting points, is not as well defined as the s-process path.

• Recent multi-D models of core-collapse explosions, however, have been unable to provide the entropies required to explain the full solar r-process pattern.38,40–45 Additionally, it would be problematic to avoid overproduction at mass numbers below 80 when producing all three r-process peaks in a single core-collapse event.36

• The astrophysical uncertainties, i.e., the knowledge of mechanisms and conditions, are considerable, especially in neutrino-wind models. These are strongly coupled to the lack of our knowledge regarding the ccSN explosion mechanism. Further insights can only be brought by 3D hydrodynamics calculations with realistic neutrino transport to constrain the actual conditions, such as neutrino-wind properties (determining the evolution of the neutron-richness of the ejected material) as well as the behavior of the ejecta regarding fallback and wind-termination shock, which can alter the time evolution of the nucleosynthesis conditions considerably.38,40

• Another problem are the elevated temperatures encountered in the r process which lead to considerable population of excited states with all the consequences of additional transitions discussed before

• The temperature dependence for these rates (similarly to what was discussed before for neutron rates) has also to be taken into account. This has not even been consistently treated in theoretical rate predictions, yet.

• A longstanding problem is posed by the comparatively large abundances, relative to the other p nuclei, of 92, 94Mo and 96, 98Ru. They are not produced in massive stars as there is not enough s- and r-process material present to act as seed to produce these nuclides in sufficient quantities. Recently, it has been found that they can be produced in thermonuclear explosions of White Dwarfs which accreted highly s-process enriched matter from a companion AGB star.65 Although this s-process enrichment is crucial for the success of the model, the details are uncertain and current γ-process studies in SNIa make ad hoc assumptions because self-consistent simulations of s processing in the accreted layer are difficult and unavailable to date. Another open question is in the details of the SNIa explosion, requiring multi-D hydrodynamical models which also provide the conditions for the nucleosynthesis in the explosion and the White Dwarf fragments. Finally, it remains unclear what fraction of SNIa is actually caused by mass accretion from a companion AGB star (single degenerate scenario) or by collisions of two White Dwarfs (double degenerate scenario).

So yes nucleosynthesis has major problems also.

So how many ancestors
Several
and what type?
Created.

Add a few more and you can be a young creationist also.

[The Barbarian]

Yes, my link also says this.

Triggered by an as yet unknown event or series of events, gravity's pull overcomes the random gas motions within an interstellar cloud

For example, the shock wave from an exploding supernova.

The shock wave from an exploding star likely helped trigger the formation of our solar system, according to a new 3D computer model, researchers say.

The solar system is thought to have coalesced from a giant rotating cloud of gas and dust known as the solar nebula about 4.6 billion years ago. For decades, scientists have suspected a star explosion called a supernova helped trigger our solar system's formation. In particular, the shock wave from the explosion is thought to have compressed parts of the nebula, causing these regions to collapse.

According to this theory, the shock wave would have injected material from the exploding star into the solar nebula. Scientists have previously detected potential evidence of this pollution in meteorites. These contaminants are remnants of short-lived radioactive isotopes — versions of elements with the same number of protons as their more stable cousins, but with a different number of neutrons.

Short-lived radioactive elements decay over the course of millions of years, becoming a variety of "daughter" elements at known rates. ("Short-lived" is a relative term — other radioactive isotopes that scientists analyzing meteorites study may decay on timescales of billions of years.)

However, analysis of the short-lived radioactive isotopes and their daughter elements seen in primitive meteorites raised a challenge to the supernova theory of the solar system's formation. The evidence suggested the short-lived radioactive isotopes had to have formed in the supernova, made their way into the solar nebula and been trapped within the meteorites all in less than a million years. [Supernova Photos: Great Images of Star Explosions]

To see if a supernova could explain this pattern of isotopes seen in primitive meteorites, scientists developed computer models of supernova shock waves and solar system formation.

"The evidence leads us to believe that a supernova was indeed the culprit," said study lead author Alan Boss, an astrophysicist at the Carnegie Institution in Washington, D.C.
https://www.space.com/16943-supernova-e ... ation.html

So you may ask is there enough water in the medium to cool the star?

It's not a star. At that point, it's a collapsing cloud. Once it gains enough concentrated mass to fire up fusion, there's no problem pulling the rest together. But we can observe the process right now...

The 30 Doradus Nebula is in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way located 170,000 light-years from Earth. Nebulas like 30 Doradus are signposts of recent star birth. High-energy ultraviolet radiation from young, hot, massive stars in R136 causes surrounding gaseous material to glow. Previous Hubble telescope observations showed that R136 contains several dozen of the most massive stars known, each about 100 times the mass of the Sun and about 10 times as hot. These stellar behemoths formed about 2 million years ago.

The stars in R136 produce intense "stellar winds," streams of material traveling at several million miles an hour. These winds push the gas away from the cluster and compress the inner regions of the surrounding gas and dust clouds (seen in the image as the pinkish material). The intense pressure triggers the collapse of parts of the clouds, producing a new star formation around the central cluster. Most stars in the nursery are not visible because they are still encased in cocoons of gas and dust.
https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/hubbles-p ... ing-region

All of this is based on whether this cooling method actually works. I have my doubts.

Since we see stars forming, it's a moot point.

So yes stars have a cooling problem.

Maybe they aren't smart enough to know they can't form, and go ahead and form anyway.

This paper was a little more technical than I wanted but it was very informative. If you would have read the paper you would have found that there was no process that was complete and they all had major issues.

Reality tops anyone's reasoning.

So yes nucleosynthesis has major problems also.

It's observed happening in our Sun. We can do it in labs. Seems unlikely that God couldn't do what we can do.

So how many ancestors

Several

and what type?

Created.

Add a few more and you can be a young creationist also.

Regular Christians also think God created living things. The difference between us and YE creationists, is that we don't disapprove of the way He did it.