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From: mmt@dciem.UUCP (Martin Taylor)
Newsgroups: net.origins
Subject: Re: Dearest A Ray Miller
Message-ID: <1435@dciem.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 2-Mar-85 18:25:07 EST
Article-I.D.: dciem.1435
Posted: Sat Mar  2 18:25:07 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 2-Mar-85 20:56:41 EST
References: <208@cmu-cs-gandalf.ARPA> <168@spp1.UUCP> 
Reply-To: mmt@dciem.UUCP (Martin Taylor)
Organization: D.C.I.E.M., Toronto, Canada
Lines: 33
Summary: 


>> But all theories have their assumptions. Evolution bases quite a bit on
>> fossil records and the age there of. Those ages, for the most part are
>> based on radioactive dating techniques which assume that radioactive
>> elements decayed in the same mannner that they do now.
>The above argument seems to ignore a considerable amount of work that has
>been done on the constancy of physical law in the universe.  As it happens
>we can observe the radiation coming from distant galaxies.  The distance to
>these objects is determined by a chain of inference which, although it
>admits of some degree of error, leaves no doubt that the light from these
>objects has been travelling for billions of years.  The fact that the
>radiation looks like light from nearby galaxies (allowing for the redshift)
>leaves no doubt that billions of years ago, in other parts of the universe,
>the same physics that applies here and now, applied with equal force then
>and there.  There is, of course, the loophole that if *all* of physics
>conspired to change together in just the right way that this would be
>observationally indistinguishable from a old universe with unchanging
>physical laws.  It would also be indistinguishable to anyone living at
>any earlier time in our universe.  In fact, it is just a trivial 
>redefinition of time and has no operational meaning.
>
>"Don't argue with a fool.      Ethan Vishniac

It was mentioned in either Science or Scientific American a few months
ago that the existence of the Gabon reactor and its present state
demonstrated the constancy of nuclear reaction rates over a period
of some 2-billion plus years to within a very small range (I think
it was parts per billion)
-- 

Martin Taylor
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