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From: wa301@sdcc12.UUCP (wa301)
Newsgroups: net.origins
Subject: Re: Sci. Case Creat. 29 (solar neutrinos)
Message-ID: <400@sdcc12.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 3-Jul-85 16:25:09 EDT
Article-I.D.: sdcc12.400
Posted: Wed Jul  3 16:25:09 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 15-Jul-85 03:46:52 EDT
References: <379@iham1.UUCP>
Distribution: net
Organization: U.C. San Diego, Academic Computer Center
Lines: 71
Summary: The amount of solar neutrinos is a detail that does not bear on the fact of the sun's nuclear fusion.


[ rck@iham1.UUCP (Ron Kukuk), 25 Jun 85 17:07:20 GMT ]

> 52.  If the sun, when  it  first  began  to  radiate,  had  any
>      nonnuclear   sources  of  energy,  they  would  have  been
>      depleted in much less that ten million years.  Theory  [a]
>      and  experiment  [b] indicate that today nuclear reactions
>      are not the predominant energy source  for  the  sun.  Our
>      star,  the  sun,  must  therefore  be young (less than ten
>      million years old). If the sun is young, then  so  is  the
>      earth.
>
>      a)  A.B. Severny,  V.A.  Kotov,  and  T.T.  Tsap,  NATURE,
>          Vol. 259, 15 January 1976, pp. 87-89.
>      b)  Paul M. Steidl, ''Solar Neutrinos and A  Young  Sun,''
>          in  DESIGN  AND ORIGINS IN ASTRONOMY, edited by George
>          Mulfinger, Jr. (Norcross, Georgia:  Creation  Research
>          Society Books, 1983), pp.  113-125.

I have seen this argument before in the chapter entitled,
"Is the solar system really 4.5 billion years old?",
in the book, "Reasons Skeptics Should Consider Christianity",
by Josh McDowell and Don Stewart (Here's Life Publishers, 1981).
It goes like this:

  1) In 1850, von Helmholtz proposed that the sun's thermal
     energy comes from its gravitational collapse. 
     The chapter cites modern-day astronomer George Abell,
     who says that the sun's age would be of the order of 100 million
     years, according to von Helmholtz's proposal. 

  2) Later on (in the 1920's), scientists learned about nuclear fusion and
     decided that all stars get basically all of their thermal
     energy from fusion, not from gravitational collapse.

  3) Later still, astronomers made more detailed models of the sun,
     and they predicted a certain value for the amount of neutrinos
     emitted by the sun's nuclear reactions.  (The chapter uses
     the unusual spelling "nutrino".)

  4) Recent experiments have measured the solar neutrino flux and
     found it to be much less than that predicted in 3).

  5) Therefore, the hypothesis of 2), that the sun shines by fusion,
     must be wrong.

  6) Recent observations cited by the chapter show that the sun
     has been shrinking for at least 400 years.

  7) Therefore, the hypothesis of 1), that the sun shines by gravi-
     tational collapse, must be correct, and the sun is much younger
     than 4.5 billion years.

At the time I first read this argument, it was my impresssion that solar
fusion was a well-established fact, not merely a hypothesis in
competition with the pre-relativity hypothesis of gravitational
collapse.  Several months later, in June 1983,
I had the opportunity to bring this chapter to the attention of
Dr. Abell himself, and I asked him if it had any validity.  He said:

  a) The accuracy of the solar neutrino measurements is pretty well
     accepted.  The theory in 3) makes an incorrect prediction.
 
  b) Solar physicists are busily working to find out why their model
     is wrong.  However, the predicted neutrino rate is very sensitive
     to the value of certain parameters in the model.  A small adjust-
     ment of these parameters yields the observed value of the neutrino
     rate.  This adjustment does NOT contradict the basic fact of
     solar fusion.

Argument 52 is invalid.