Brian Thomas is trying to attack - and exploit for his own dogmatic ends - this paper in Nature:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v5 ... 13849.html
See:
http://www.icr.org/article/8387/
Thomas proclaims that cometary material around the star beta Pictoris is "evidence of recent creation".
However:
- the abstract to the paper in Nature states: "Our results show that the evaporating bodies observed for decades in the β Pictoris system are analogous to the comets in our own Solar System". I take that to mean that - as in our solar system - there are thought to be short period and also long period comets (in our solar system the latter are thought to come from what is called the Oort Cloud - yet young earth creationists deny that the Oort Cloud even exists);
- this solar system - in contrast to our own - looks young (or at least the material around the star does). Yet the star is only 63 light years away - not nearly 6,000 light years or indeed further (surely if that star and solar system was created at the same time as the Earth and our Sun it would look more like our solar system does with its eight ancient or 'mature' planets - and which has been aged at around 4.5 bn years old based on radiometric dating of meteorites).
So how does Thomas seek to persuade that these likely exocomets are "evidence of recent creation"?
By misleading people. I quote: "If that huge chaotic explosion [the Big Bang of around 13 bn years ago] really describes how the universe began, then shouldn't stars and planets—which do not form spontaneously—all look very similar?" The answer of course is NO.
Astronomers are aware of stars of different ages and type, and also different generations. I am sure that Thomas is also aware of the evidence for this. Yet he pretends otherwise.
I also cannot make ANY sense of Thomas' fifth paragraph - where he appears to totally contradict himself.
Maybe some of these exocomets are quite young (younger than 'creation week' even). So what?
This is 'science' for idiots and bigots. PSEUDO-science.
I will try to post my comments at the ICR Facebook page.
PS Well it's there just now:
https://www.facebook.com/icr.org
PPS At 21.23 pm GMT on 8 Nov.
Sorensen has come along and lied to everyone else that I 'misrepresent' creationists. And Harold has exclaimed "AHW's comments above cannot be refuted because they have no substance". Sorry, Harold, it does not work like that. I am clearly rattling the cages of some very extreme and ridiculous people who visit the ICR facebook page. They hate science and they hate anybody ever disagreeing with their pseudo-science or their hero's pseudo-science.