Planetary Magnetic Dynamo Theories: A Century of Failure

For nearly a century, geoscientists who believe the earth is billions of years old have been striving to develop a successful dynamo theory to explain how the earth\u27s magnetic field might maintain itself over that long time. After reviewing analytic theories, computer simulations, and laboratory experiments, I have concluded that all those efforts have fallen short of proving the geomagnetic field could be maintained by a dynamo. To contrast with this apparent failure, I touch upon the remarkable success of creationist theories in explaining magnetic fields in our Solar system, especially the planet Mercury. This contrast supports the young Biblical age of the world, about 6,000 years

Physical Mechanism for Reversals of the Earth\u27s Magnetic Field During the Flood

Recent paleomagnetic data [1] strongly supports my hypothesis [2] that the Earth\u27s magnetic field reversed itself rapidly during the Genesis flood. This paper shows specifically how convection upflows of the electrically conductive fluid in the earth\u27s core would produce such rapid reversals. The analysis shows that (1) the upflows had to have been faster than 3 meters per second and larger than 5 kilometers in diameter, and (2) each reversal would decrease the strength of the field slightly. All the evidence indicates that the earth\u27s magnetic field has continuously lost energy since its creation, implying that the field is less than 9000 years old

Reversals of the Earth\u27s Magnetic Field During the Genesis Flood

Strong convection in the earth\u27s core during the Deluge would rapidly reverse the magnetic field while the fossil layers were being laid down. Afterwards the field would fluctuate for several thousand years and then begin decaying steadily. This young-earth model explains the paleomagnetic and archaeomagnetic evidence better than old-earth dynamo theories do

A Biblical Basis for a Creationist Cosmology

Taking Genesis 1 and other scriptures in the most straightforward possible sense leads to several conclusions of great importance for cosmology: (1) The expanse of Genesis chapter 1 is not the earth\u27s atmosphere but interstellar space, (2) The waters above the expanse are cosmic in scale and represent a boundary for interstellar space, (3) the earth is near the center of the universe. These conclusions form the basis for a young-earth relativistic cosmology which I describe in another paper presented at this conference

The Creation of Cosmic Magnetic Fields

In 1983, on the basis of Scriptures implying the original created material of the earth was water, I proposed that God created the water with the spins of its hydrogen nuclei initially aligned in one direction (Humphreys, 1983). That would produce a strong magnetic field. After 6,000 years of decay, including energy losses from magnetic reversals during the Genesis Flood, (Humphreys, 1986a, 1990c) the strength of the earth\u27s magnetic field would be what we observe today. In 1984 I extended the theory to the other planets of the solar system, the Sun, and the Moon (Humphreys, 1984). The theory explained the observed magnetic field strengths of those bodies very well. It also correctly predicted the field strengths of Uranus and Neptune measured by the Voyager 2 spacecraft several years later, (Humphreys, 1986b, 1990a, b) as well as magnetizations of surface rocks on Mars (Humphreys, 1999). In this paper I improve the theory and apply it to updated solar system data, meteorites, and the larger moons of Jupiter and Saturn. Then in a brief survey I apply it beyond our solar system to ordinary stars, magnetic stars, white dwarf stars, pulsars, “magnetars,” galaxies, and the cosmos itself. The theory appears to be able to explain the magnetic fields of all heavenly bodies for which we have magnetic data. In contrast, the origin of cosmic magnetic fields is still a great mystery to uniformitarian theorists (Langer, Puget, & Aghanim, 2003)

The Sea\u27s Missing Salt: A Dilemma for Evolutionists

The known and conjectured processes which deliver and remove dissolved sodium (Na+) to and from the ocean are inventoried . On 1y 27% of the present Na+ deli vered to the ocean can be accounted for by known removal processes. This indicates that the Na+ concentration of the ocean is not today in steady state as supposed by evolutionists, but is increasing with time . The present rate of increase (about 3 x 1011 kg/yr) cannot be accomodated into evolutionary models assuming cyclic or episodic removal of input Na+ and a 3-billion-year-old ocean. The enormous imbalance shows that the sea should contain much more salt than it does today if the evolutionary model were true. A differential equation containing minimum input rates and maximum output rates allows a maximum age of the ocean of 62 million years to be calculated. The data can be accomodated well into a creationist model

Measurable \u3csup\u3e14\u3c/sup\u3eC in Fossilized Organic Materials: Confirming the Young Earth Creation-Flood Model

Given the short 14C half-life of 5730 years, organic materials purportedly older than 250,000 years, corresponding to 43.6 half-lives, should contain absolutely no detectable 14C. (One gram of modern carbon contains about 6 x 1010 14C atoms, and 43.6 half-lives should reduce that number by a factor of 7.3 x 10-14.) An astonishing discovery made over the past twenty years is that, almost without exception, when tested by highly sensitive accelerator mass spectrometer (AMS) methods, organic samples from every portion of the Phanerozoic record show detectable amounts of 14C! 14C/C ratios from all but the youngest Phanerozoic samples appear to be clustered in the range 0.1-0.5 pmc (percent modern carbon), regardless of geological ‘age.’ A straightforward conclusion that can be drawn from these observations is that all but the very youngest Phanerozoic organic material was buried contemporaneously much less than 250,000 years ago. This is consistent with the Biblical account of a global Flood that destroyed most of the air-breathing life on the planet in a single brief cataclysm only a few thousand years ago

Helium Diffusion Rates Support Accelerated Nuclear Decay

Two decades ago, Robert Gentry and his colleagues at Oak Ridge National Laboratory reported surprisingly high amounts of nuclear-decay-generated helium in tiny radioactive zircons recovered from Precambrian crystalline rock, the Jemez Granodiorite on the west flank of the volcanic Valles Caldera near Los Alamos, New Mexico [9]. Up to 58% of the helium (that radioactivity would have generated during the alleged 1.5 billion year age of the granodiorite) was still in the zircons. Yet the zircons were so small that they should not have retained the helium for even a tiny fraction of that time. The high helium retention levels suggested to us and many other creationists that the helium simply had not had enough time to diffuse out of the zircons, and that recent accelerated nuclear decay had produced over a billion years worth of helium within only the last few thousand years, during Creation and/or the Flood. Such acceleration would reduce the radioisotopic time scale from megayears down to months. However, until a few years ago nobody had done the experimental and theoretical studies necessary to confirm this conclusion quantitatively. There was only one (ambiguously reported) measurement of helium diffusion through zircon [18]. There were no measurements of helium diffusion through biotite, the black mica surrounding the zircons. In 2000 the RATE project [14] began experiments to measure the diffusion rates of helium in zircon and biotite specifically from the Jemez Granodiorite. The data, reported here, are consistent with data for a mica related to biotite [17], with recently reported data for zircon [19] and with a reasonable interpretation of the earlier zircon data [18]. We show that these data limit the age of these rocks to between 4,000 and 14,000 years. These results support our hypothesis of accelerated nuclear decay and represent strong scientific evidence for the young world of Scripture

Catastrophic Plate Tectonics: A Global Flood Model of Earth History

In 1859 Antonio Snider proposed that rapid, horizontal divergence of crustal plates occurred during Noah\u27s Flood. Modem plate tectonics theory is now confiated with assumptions of uniformity of rate and ideas of continental \u27drift\u27. Catastrophic plate tectonics theories, such as Snider proposed more than a century ago, appear capable of explaining a wide variety of data -- including Biblical and geologic data which the slow tectonics theories are incapable of explaining. We would like to propose a catastrophic plate tectonics theory as a framework for earth history. Geophysically, we begin with a pre-Flood earth differentiated into core, mantle, and crust, with the crust hOrizontally differentiated into sialic craton and mafic ocean floor. The Flood was initiated as slabs of oceanic floor broke loose and subducted along thousands of kilometers of pre-Flood continental margins. Deformation of the mantle by these slabs raised the temperature and lowered the viscosity of the mantle in the vicinity of the slabs. A resulting thermal runaway of the slabs through the mantle led to meters-per-second mantle convection. Cool oceanic crust which descended to the core/mantle boundary induced rapid reversals of the earth\u27s magnetic field. Large plumes originating near the core/mantle boundary expressed themselves at the surface as fissure eruptions and flood basalts. Flow induced in the mantle also produced rapid extension along linear belts throughout the sea floor and rapid horizontal displacement of continents. Upwelling magma jettisoned steam into the atmosphere causing intense global rain. Rapid emplacement of isostatically lighter mantle material raised the level of the ocean floor, displacing ocean water onto the continents. When virtually all the pre-Flood oceanic floor had been replaced with new,less-dense, less-subductable, oceanic crust, catastrophic plate motion stopped. Subsequent cooling increased the density of the new ocean floor, producing deeper ocean basins and a reservoir for post-Flood oceans. Sedimentologically, we begin with a substantial reservoir of carbonate and clastic sediment in the pre-Flood ocean. During the Flood hot brines associated with new ocean floor added precipitites to that sediment reservoir, and warming ocean waters and degassing magmas added carbonates - especially high magnesium carbonates. Also during the Flood, rapid plate tectonics moved pre-Flood sediments toward the continents. As ocean plates subducted near a continental margin, its bending caused upwarping of sea floor, and its drag caused downwarping 609 of continental crust, facilitating the placement of sediment onto the continental margin. Once there, earthquake induced sea waves with ocean-to-Iand movement redistributed sediment toward continental interiors. Resulting sedimentary units tend to be thick, uniform, of unknown provenance, and extend over regional, inter-regional, and even continental areas. After the Flood, the earth experienced a substantial period of isostatic readjustment, where local to regional catastrophes with intense earthquake and volcanic activity were common. Post-Flood sedimentation continued to be rapid but was dominantly basinal on the continents. Left-over heat in the new oceans produced a significantly warmer climate just after the Flood. In the following centuries, as the earth cooled, floral and faunal changes tracked the changing climate zonation. The warmer oceans caused continental transport of moisture that led to the advance of continental glaciers and ultimately to the formation of polar ice caps

The Real Combination Problem : Panpsychism, Micro-Subjects, and Emergence

Panpsychism harbors an unresolved tension, the seriousness of which has yet to be fully appreciated. I capture this tension as a dilemma, and offer panpsychists advice on how to resolve it. The dilemma, briefly, is as follows. Panpsychists are committed to the perspicuous explanation of macro-mentality in terms of micro-mentality. But panpsychists take the micro-material realm to feature not just mental properties, but also micro-subjects to whom these properties belong. Yet it is impossible to explain the constitution of a macro-subject (like one of us) in terms of the assembly of micro-subjects, for, I show, subjects cannot combine. Therefore the panpsychist explanatory project is derailed by the insistence that the world’s ultimate material constituents (ultimates) are subjects of experience. The panpsychist faces a choice of abandoning her explanatory project, or recanting the claim that the ultimates are subjects. This is the dilemma. I argue that the latter option is to be preferred. This needn’t constitute a wholesale abandonment of panpsychism, however, since panpsychists can maintain that the ultimates possess phenomenal qualities, despite not being subjects of those qualities. This proposal requires us to make sense of phenomenal qualities existing independently of experiencing subjects, a challenge I tackle in the penultimate section. The position eventually reached is a form of neutral monism, so another way to express the overall argument is to say that, keeping true to their philosophical motivations, panpsychists should really be neutral monists.Peer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio