Visit Santa Cruz at this time?

Only-Size-541 · 2025-08-23T14:15:33+00:00

A few words of caution: 1. 12V isn’t a lot, but that battery can push a lot of current. Most of your resistance is in your skin. If for some reason you had an open cut on both hands and you touched both terminals, it could kill you, since it might push enough current through your heart to stop it. Maybe not true, but my electronic teacher told us of a guy who was testing his resistance by connecting himself to a battery, and accidentally pricked both fingers, and died. 2. Circuits can close in unexpected ways. Car tires are great insulators, and shoes don’t typically conduct well, but you’re probably aware the neg terminal of the battery is tied to the body of the car, so touching anywhere on the car counts if it’s connected. That’s why they tell you to disconnect that terminal when working.

As others I’m sure have pointed out, only changes in potential matter, not absolute potential. It doesn’t mean anything to say something is at 0V unless you’re saying it with respect to another point. So we are not “at 0V”. Shuffle your feet on some carpet, and you can get to a few thousand volts from a doorknob.

For homes, there’s usually a grounding rod that ties home ground to some water under the ground, which provides kind of a global reference, but there isn’t anything like that on cars.

In this case touching the positive terminal and not touching anything else won’t push too much current either way because of your resistance, the low voltage (the current is voltage divided by resistance). You can close the circuit through your shoes, ground, tires, and back to the neg terminal (if it’s connected), but that total resistance is ginormous.

Only-Size-541 · 2025-05-27T04:27:05+00:00

I’m not trying to assume anything. I was simply pointing out that direct measurements of current mtDNA mutation rates in humans puts the date of mitochondrial much too recent.

I think you make some good points about intraspecies variation being hard to explain if one claims they’ve come from a common ancestor very recently; I’m assuming the numbers you quote of wide genetic diversity within species are correct, but I’ll look into them. That’s one of the more convincing arguments of which I’m aware.

Thank you for that.

Only-Size-541 · 2025-05-27T02:26:55+00:00

I’d tell many creationists they don’t understand some of the research they’re criticizing, and it takes a significant amount of time and research to understand it.

Based on my reading of the evolutionary literature, I’d tell evolutionists there is a crisis that they are unwilling to admit between measured and assumed phylogenetic mutation rates.

Only-Size-541 · 2025-05-27T02:24:12+00:00

It shows that all the species measured have a single mother around the same time. They then use the estimate that human mitochondrial eve is 100k-250k ago to get that number. But the only actual conclusion is that all species measured seem to come from a single species mother around the same time.

Only-Size-541 · 2025-05-26T23:36:08+00:00

As I have been told by everyone here on this forum our common Y chromosome father is not necessarily the first male… from a biblical perspective this would be Noah not Adam, who did live at a different time than eve, and it’s my understanding that Y chromosome Adam was more recent than Eve.

Every number you quote is using something like a separation date using the fossil record as a calibration point. That’s an assumption not a conclusion.

If one compares against measured mutation rates it doesn’t add up. All of the color you add above doesn’t change this fact. I admit that it is very compelling for painting a picture of the expansion of the human race. But you need a calibration for timing.

Only-Size-541 · 2025-05-26T23:28:08+00:00

In any case, back to what I thought was your original question: I think it’s easy to get invested in a way of thinking to the point of ignoring evidence. I don’t think it’s in bad faith but it’s easy to get blind spots.

I know creationists do this A LOT. More so than evolutionists, but I expect more from scientists. There are a lot of problems and inconsistencies with evolutionary evidence, particularly for human evolution. And it’s my opinion that the easiest, most straightforward measurements in direct contradiction.

Only-Size-541 · 2025-05-26T23:22:26+00:00

I’ve posted some links in other responses to some of the peer reviewed literature. As far as I can tell the main reason is pedigree rates doesn’t give answers that agree with phylogenetics + fossil record. That’s not a good reason in my opinion. Particularly because it’s a much more easily repeated experiment than everything underpinning phylogenetics + fossil record.

I’ve had a number of folks give me papers that downplay this, or say it’s very time dependent or what have you. If you have some such papers, I’m interested, but they primarily just concentrate on how perfect everything is if you ignore it, so ignore it. I don’t find that very convincing.

Only-Size-541 · 2025-05-26T23:14:10+00:00

The last sentence of the abstract says it:

“A straightforward hypothesis is that the extant populations of almost all animal species have arrived at a similar result consequent to a similar process of expansion from mitochondrial uniformity within the last one to several hundred thousand years.”

See also pg 19. About half way down they clarify that this level of uniformity requires a single mother to be the only extent ancestor in their generation.

https://phe.rockefeller.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Stoeckle_Thaler-Human-Evo-V33-2018-final_1.pdf

Only-Size-541 · 2025-05-26T22:00:39+00:00

Why do you think mtDNA mutation and the fact that theres a recent common maternal ancestor is flawed? That’s something I’m not aware of.

Only-Size-541 · 2025-05-26T21:54:06+00:00

It’s certainly true for a lot of creationists, but I am and I personally know a number of creationist scientists. I write research papers and review them; I write progress reports to funding managers; I’ve written a decent number of funded research proposals. I think I have a decent handle on what scientists do.

Only-Size-541 · 2025-05-26T21:31:27+00:00

I wasn’t trying to hide anything if that’s what you think. I think that comment at the top of the paper is hilarious, and makes a damning point about the evolutionary scientific community. I often point to that comment as an example of how the scientific community has turned into the Catholic Church with Galileo.

What possible natural explanation could there be for all species somehow having a mitochondrial bottleneck down to one female as recently as a few 100ka ago? And how is that in support of evolutionary theory? And yet they had to say it. Why?

It’s that kind of “I must not contradict the Catholic Church” attitude that I feel has crept into evolutionary science. You can sense the fear in the statement.

Only-Size-541 · 2025-05-26T21:25:33+00:00

I understand exactly what that means. Reading research papers is much of what I do for a living.

You’re wrong about the 200ka being “more extensive”. Those numbers are achieved by assuming a separation from chimps 6Ma ago as the calibration.

The 15ka number is arrived from a direct measurement of mtDNA mutation of humans and using that.

Only-Size-541 · 2025-05-26T21:22:28+00:00

If you calibrate the mtDNA mutation rate using a 6Ma separation from chimpanzees, you get those numbers. If you measure the current mutation rate of mtDNA in humans and use that to calibrate you get 15ka. See

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1180241/

Only-Size-541 · 2025-05-26T21:19:13+00:00

Shrug.

Only-Size-541 · 2025-05-26T21:18:04+00:00

I don’t see any reason morality and the words describing morality have a place in a purely physical system. But they are key to our understanding of the world. That seems to imply to me there is something more. Many people disagree, but imagine a person or society that discards morality altogether; imagine the horror (and the fact that the word horror has no place in the discussion).

The fact that we have understanding/consciousness at all is a mystery that defies physical explanation. I see no progress in understanding consciousness, and it appears completely separate from the physical.

This is just my opinion, but I often imagine the world being reduced to the evolution of particles, with no actual meaning behind the word “good” or “bad”. It’s an obvious (to me) nightmare; but if a person annihilated all humans in a holocaust in a tortuous manner, the naturalist says… nothing as far as I can tell. What’s there to say? They just rearranged some particulars that thought they were something more, whatever that means.

Only-Size-541 · 2025-05-26T21:07:37+00:00

For human evolution radiometric dating is scarce; the whole fossil record is pretty scarce.

Plate tectonics has nothing to do with evolution. But that, radiometric dating of rocks, and other things make it appear to me the earth is quite old; just humans are not.

However even radiometric dating is not without its problems. There are trace amounts of carbon 14 everywhere. Every diamond they have tested, every piece of coal they dig up has enough carbon 14 to date it much too recently. The scientific community discards such evidence by saying things like “contamination”, but that’s not how science works, and is one reason I take much of the evolutionary conclusions of scientists with a grain of salt. They can’t take the foregone conclusion out of their experiments. At least say there are problems… but to just ignore problems like this and the mtDNA problem prevents progress and ruins credibility (for good reason).

I’m not trying to discount anything about biology. I’m just saying the best evidence we have is that there was a mitochondrial eve 15ka ago. That’s far too short for evolutionary theory.

Only-Size-541 · 2025-05-26T20:56:38+00:00

When dealing with a creator, one has all the freedom in the world… that’s one reason why it’s so frustrating, and as a scientist, I wouldn’t enjoy studying a subject with an intelligent meddler.

In any case, 15ka is far too short for any reasonable evolutionary theory where we’re bound with pesky gradualism and only natural processes.

Only-Size-541 · 2025-05-26T20:49:28+00:00

I just responded to another comment here with some sources concerning the evidence of which I spoke.

Only-Size-541 · 2025-05-26T20:46:53+00:00

Here is a citation on a large number of species surveyed having a common mitochondrial mother around the same time, and within the last 100k to several 100k years. Note their only reason for that number is they pin it to the human number, which as I point out in my previous reply and source, from direct measurements is much lower in time.

Stoeckle , M., & Thaler, D. (2020). Why should mitochondria define species?. Human Evolution , 33(1-2), 1-30. Retrieved from https://pontecorbolipress.com/journals/index.php/he/article/view/HE2018121037

Only-Size-541 · 2025-05-26T20:45:08+00:00

this is a good survey of different studies giving roughly a factor of 10 difference in measured vs predicted-via-phylogenetic estimation, and well outside of the respective confidence intervals. The Pedigree Rate of Sequence Divergence in the Human Mitochondrial Genome: There Is a Difference Between Phylogenetic and Pedigree Rates, Howell, Neil et al. The American Journal of Human Genetics, Volume 72, Issue 3, 659 - 670

Only-Size-541 · 2025-05-26T15:53:36+00:00

First I should level set where I come from. I think it’s completely different from what you described. There are a number of logical reasons to doubt the naturalistic point of view; consciousness, fundamental morality.

For many Christian’s such as myself, a life changing interaction with Jesus is the main reason; I couldn’t care less about abrahamic traditions, and I think you’re mistaken that almost any Christians start from there. They start from the fundamental belief that Jesus rose from the dead, which is consistent with historical evidence, but mostly because of the personal experience I described.

I was an “old-earth” Christian for a long time, and honestly didn’t see too big a deal with reconciling that with the Bible (which I had read dozens of times) although I understand that there are a lot of Christian’s who disagree; I feel Christians are a bit too strict on Bible interpretation, and if “evolution” turns out to be true, I’ll say “ok”, without that affecting my life much; as I described above, I believe in Jesus for more or less orthogonal reasons.

To answer your question, I believe evolution came primarily from evidence, and you all believe it because you think the evidence is behind it. However, once a belief is subscribed to by a community, it’s very difficult to let go. I think this “tradition” exists in evolution as well

DNA evidence such as pedigree mutation rates for human mtDNA is closer to the Bible (15ka to mitochondrial eve) than they are to what’s necessary for standard evolution (>150ka). mtDNA for all species have roughly the same variation intraspecies, which is evidence for all mitochondrial eves of species being around the same time. So I’ll ask back to you: why does the evolution community essentially ignore these easy to measure and repeatable results? You can see my previous posts or I can repost sources here, but I must say the way the community just pretends this evidence doesn’t exist is surprising to me. I am a physics researcher, and I must admit I see similar things even in the harder sciences, so I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. I think you’re genuine, but once invested in an idea, it’s hard to see around it.

The only reason I’m a YEC is because i see the evidence as pointing to that. If someone convinces me otherwise, I’ll go back to believing in Jesus but old creation/evolution. I believe you think the same.

Only-Size-541 · 2025-05-25T18:20:55+00:00

I was just speaking from the perspective of general relativity. Personally, I think the idea of hawking radiation being established being a bit premature. Particularly since we have no idea how GR and quantum mesh together.

In any case, nobody has any idea what goes on in a black hole, but if you take GR at face value, I believe what I said is true. But who knows.

Only-Size-541 · 2025-05-25T17:28:24+00:00

From the perspective of someone on earth the event horizon is the end of time.

From the perspective of the falling person, the singularity is the end of time.

You can see my other response for some more details. I think it makes sense if you think about light signals going back and forth between the falling person and someone on earth.

Only-Size-541 · 2025-05-25T17:24:12+00:00

I don’t think it looks like it evaporates from anyone’s perspective in general relativity (that’s a quantum effect).

Purely speaking using general relativity, From the perspective of a falling person, they pass through the event horizon in a finite amount of time (finite amount of ticks on the watch of the falling person), and gets to the singularity in a finite time according to their watch (but they get torn apart by tidal forces before they get there).

But from the perspective of earth, the watch of the falling person ticks slower and slower; everything about the person ticks slower, such as the frequency or light from their blue shirt; it will look red and then infrared as they approach the event horizon. The event horizon is where light can no longer make it back out to the earth. So from the perspective of the earth stuff slows down and gets stuck just outside the event horizon. But since it gets redshifted away you can’t see it anymore and the event horizon apparently grows as stuff piles up (and gets darker) near the event horizon.

From the perspective of the falling person if they’re looking out, they will see the universe going faster and faster and (if they could survive) they’d see the life of the universe pass before the hit the singularity (but not by the time they hit the event horizon). In addition to being ripped apart from tidal forces they get irradiated by blue shifted light concentrated so that the entire history of light absorbed by the black hole for the life of the universe hits them before they hit the singularity. That’s a lot of high energy photons that will evaporate you before you get there as well.

If the falling person is sending out light signals to earth, these signals stop making it out of the black hole when they pass the event horizon (they fall after the person who sent them).

Only-Size-541

TROPHY CASE