Stars and galaxies are unchanging
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Claim
The creation model predicts galaxies constant and stars unchanging, in the main. They may decay, but they were created entire and did not build up over time.
Source
- Morris, Henry M., 1974. Scientific Creationism, Master Books, Arkansas, pp. 13,24-25.
Responses
- Due to the finite speed of light, the further away astronomers look into space, the further back in time they can see. Such observations have demonstrated that the types and forms of galaxies in the distant past are different than now.
- Astronomers have directly observed star forming regions in the galaxy (e.g., Orion nebula).
- Galaxies and stars are changing, but these changes take much more time than can be directly observed, which is why we see only a snapshot of each star and galaxy. This is akin to observing a forest and wondering why the trees seem so changeless. Might one conclude that they had been created at their full size? The trees only seem so changeless because they typically take several decades to grow to that size.
- Extending the analogy further, both stars and trees suffer catastrophic events: explosions and toppling. However, their long timescales of growth/evolution mean that one has to observe large numbers of stars and trees in order to have a good chance of seeing such events. This makes their leftovers, like supernova remnants, pulsars, and toppled trees, much more abundant than those events themselves over typical observation sessions. Even so, astronomers are able to observe several supernovae every year by conducting broad sky surveys.
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Fallacies contained in this claim
References
- Pudritz, Ralph E., 2002. Clustered star formation and the origin of stellar masses. Science 295: 68-76.
- Ward-Thompson, Derek, 2002. Isolated star formation: From cloud formation to core collapse. Science 295: 76-81. (See also related articles in the same issue.)
Related claims
- Galaxies should lose their spiral shape over millions of years
- Formation of stars and planets from gas has never been observed
- Organisms come in discrete kinds
