From: allenroy (allenroy@peoplepc.com)
Date: Mon Sep 29 2003 - 20:45:12 EDT
John W Burgeson wrote:
> I remember the magnetic field argument of Dr. Thomas Barnes, Hey -- he
> was a Prof at the University of Texas. A physicist. I was very impressed
> with the argument. Then an IBM friend shared with me the math under the
> claim. I don't think I ever gave the YEC claim and serious credence after
> that. The claim was not only abysmally incompetent physics, but
> irrational and speculative mathematics and, as presented by ICR,
> bordering on being intellectually dishonest.
Have you read this on the earth's magnetic field? Russell Humphreys, 2002,
"The Earth's Magnetic Field is Still Losing Energy," CRSQ (39:1, pp.3-13)
http://www.creationresearch.org/crsq/articles/39/39_1/GeoMag.htm
Humphres' debunks the evo's criticisms, and goes on to expand the concept of
Earth's magnetism -- many charts, tables, and equations. He also gives a brief
summary of developments in this "magnetic controversy." Thomas Barnes published
his first paper on how decay of the dipole moment fits the creationist concept
in 1971.
In 1983 geologist Brent Dalrymple criticized Barnes' work, saying "The
same observatory measurements that show the dipole moment has decreased since
1829 also show that this decrease has been almost completely balanced by a
corresponding increase in the strength of the nondipole field, so that the
strength of the total observed field has remained about constant." Humphreys
then shows that Dalrymple didn't know what he was talking about.
There were quibbles back and forth between Barnes and Dalrymple, and some
others joined the fray. Humphreys writes: "After surveying the evidence for
geomagnetic polarity reversals for myself, I concluded that they had indeed
occurred. I proposed that they took place rapidly during the Genesis Flood
(Humphreys, 1986)."
Humphreys describes some more of the debate, then writes: "Dalrymple had
an opportunity to be an official reviewer for my paper, and to have his review
published. He did not take advantage of the opportunity. In my response to the
other reviews of my paper, I made note of Dalrymple's silence."
"Despite these creationist answers, skeptics today still use Dalrymple’s
old arguments to dismiss geomagnetic evidence. Much of that is probably due to
ignorance of our responses, but some skeptics are still relying on the
non-dipole part of the field. They hope that an energy gain in the non-dipole
part will compensate for the energy lost from the dipole part."
In 1968, the International Association of Geomagnetism and Aeronomy
(IAGA) began to systematically gather and preserve geomagnetic data from all
over the world. There's now a good database available (previously nonexistent).
Humphreys gets more detailed and technical, with graphs and tables,
including a description of how and why Dalrymple went wrong in his criticism.
Humphreys' closing paragraph says: "Today's energy decay rate is so high that
the geomagnetic field could not be more than a few dozen millennia old.
Moreover, during the rapid polarity reversals of the Genesis Flood, and during
the large fluctuations of surface field B for millennia after the Flood, the
rate of energy loss was much greater than today's rate. That shortens the age
of the field even more. In the absence of any workable analytical theory (or
data) to the contrary from the evolutionists, these data are quite consistent
with the face-value Biblical age of the earth, about 6000 years."
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