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The Myth of c Decay
One of the more moronic creationist arguments for a young universe is that the speed of light was faster in the past than it is today. Since we can see starlight from millions of lightyears away, it must have taken the light millions of years to reach us, so the universe can't be a paltry 6,500 years old. Anyone with a brain should be able to grasp the logic behind this...anyone except, of course creationists.
How do they arrive at this conclusion? Simple. They assume that the Bible is inerrant ( laughable assumption, at best), and that the universe is 6,500 years old (another laughable assumption) and attempt to create evidence to support those assumptions. This is the polar opposite of the scientific method which finds facts first and draws conclusions from those facts. This essay will put to rest the stupidity of a c decay on the magnitude of which they are discussing.
Before we begin, it should be noted that there is legitimate scientific research going into the prospect of a decaying c. The scientific community takes evidence supporting this prospect very seriously, since the implications are absolutely enormous, as this essay will show. However, it is doubtful that c has been decaying by such a huge amount as to lessen the estimated age of the universe by six orders of magnitude.
Rate of Decay
The speed of light is a velocity (m/s), so any decay it undergoes will be an acceleration (m/s2). Now, since creationists don't bother to provide a mechanism for this decay, we are left with a few choices of which kind of decay to analyze. We'll use a constant linear decay (the speed of light decreases by x amount of m/s per unit of time). So, let's say we have a star that is measured to be 100 million lightyears away. According to creationists, this star can be no older than 6,500 years. So, we have a discrepancy. Astronomers, cosmologists and physicists will tell you that that star can be no less than 100 million years old.
To begin, we'll compare the creationist upper limit with the scientific lower limit. Creationists maintain that the distance is the same (100 million light years), but the time is only 6,500 years. If light covered 100 million lightyears in such a small amount of time, it'd amount to an average velocity of 4.6E12m/s (about 1000 times greater than it is now). We know that it must have taken 6,500 years for c to decay from an unknown velocity to 3E8m/s. Using the formula d=(1/2)at2, we can find the average acceleration (any change in velocity or direction is considered an acceleration; it is not limited to increases in velocity) that light undergoes. With this method, we find that c decays at about -45m/s2, or 1.42E9m/s/yr. So, if the speed of light today is 3E8m/s, then it would have been 1.72E9m/s this time last year, almost 10 times as fast as it is now.
This is clearly ridiculous and flies in the face of observed fact. But, while we're having fun with other people's stupid ideas, let's take it one step further. According to creationists, all the stars were created at once. So, what do we get when we use a star that's 200 million lightyears away as a base? We get a different rate of decay! So, light's velocity from one star slows down more quickly than the light's velocity from another star. It is absolutely incredible that people still buy into this clearly moronic idea.
That's Not What Setterfield Said!
Barry Setterfield was the first to i