As many of you know, the supernova claims of Keith Davies are dealt this in the following Talk.Origins Archive FAQ.

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/supernova/

I encourage everyone to read this important FAQ. Jonathan Sarfati who used the claims of Davies in an article linked to in the FAQ has written a "reply" that is not much more than obfususcation.

Source for Sarfati quote

For a second there, I thought you were talking about net icon Jack Sarfatti. I've found this Sarfati article, but it doesn't seem to have the quote.

Nor does any of it have much to do with astronomy, except the inclusion of the term astronomers.

Keith Davies' article on supernovae is utterly wrong. I rip it apart in my book, actually. He goes through quite a bit to say there are no SNR older than 10,000 years, which is completely wrong. Even a cursory search in the journal databases netted me many that were a lot older than 10,000 years.

Worse, it takes a long time to cook a star (at least a million years) before it can explode as a supernova. So even if I grant that there is none older then 10,000 years, that still means the universe is a million+10,000 years old at the very least.

Davies goes on for thousands of words confusing the truth, but in the end it's based on a false premise.

Note too that the picture at the top of his page is not of a supernova, as he claims, but an overexposed star in Orion's belt. The guy clearly hasn't a clue what he's talking about.

HaHaHahahahahaaa! Does he really think that's a supernova? It's the Horsehead nebula and the star Alnitak, the westernmost star in Orion's belt. Any astronomer worth his salt can recognize it immediately.

That's just too funny.

__________________
...And that, my liege, is how we know the Earth to be banana-shaped. --Sir Bedevere

What picture are you talking about? i.e. what of the posted articles is it in? I looked, but it didn't strike my eye... maybe I didn't look good enough though, I scrolled over most of the pages and disregarded thumbs...

[img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_wink.gif[/img]

__________________
[Foot mouth in put]
Si tacuisses, philosophus mansisses.

It's at the top of the Keith Davies link the BA posted.

_________________
...And that, my liege, is how we know the Earth to be banana-shaped. --Sir Bedevere

<font size="-1">(got the name wrong)</font>

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: David Hall on 2003-03-16 18:22 ]</font>

argh!

Thanks. I really should click on the thumbs once and again...

[img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_wink.gif[/img]

__________________
[Foot mouth in put]
Si tacuisses, philosophus mansisses.

The following response to my talk.origins Supernova FAQ article (http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/supernova) was posted at:
http://www.kipertek.com/cgi-bin/wsmb...logetic+3.1157. Sarfati's quotes are indicated by chevrons, my responses are unindented.

>Dr. Sarfati says,
>
>
>
>This seems to come from blustery and verbose article on the essentially atheistic >talk.origins site from a person called Moore who admits that he lacks qualifications in >astronomy. Much TalkOrigins bilge is written by people unqualified in the areas they're >talking about -- and it shows! Keith Davies, who research I acknowledged using, and I are >well aware of this Moore article, and I understand that he is preparing a detailed >response.

Neither does Davies, who is a teacher [1], and neither does Sarfati, whose degree is in chemistry (specifically superconductors) [2]. But that doesn't seem to stop Sarfati pontificating upon any subject under the sun on the AiG website [3][4].


>Moore is also obsessed with the anti-creationist fetish that creationists quote out of >context.

Sorry, Sarafti. This is genuine fact. Faced with the extreme shortfall of evidence (i.e. none) that backs up their position, Creationists often resort to quote-mining - indeed in the past they have published whole books of doctored quotes "supporting" creationism [4]


>He rails against the way Davies uses some of the unusual phrases found in journals that >indicated surprise at the shortfall of galactic SNRs, and no doubt this is what your >critic has picked up on.

Except that the phrases, *when quoted in context* of their paragraphs and discussions in the original papers indicate *completely* different conclusions to what Davies alledges in his article.

>Moore makes the point that several of these phrases were written in the context of >explanations of the problem and that Mr Davies should have made that clear.

>Moore omits completely one crucial fact. He fails to say that Davies introduce those >phrases clearly and unambiguously by saying :

>'A number of astronomers, in the context of trying to find solutions to the shortfall >have commented on the situation as follows.'
>The above completely unambiguous statements that Davies uses to introduce those phrases >should at the very least have been included with the section Moore has excerpted from his >paper. To have not only left out that important introductory statement but also not even >to have referred to it is bordering on defamatory.

It is nothing of the sort Sarfati. Davies is alledging that there *is* a shortfall in SNR numbers, and is doctoring quotes from an old paper to make it appear that astronomers do so as well, when even a cursory scan through the astronomical literature (something that you appear not to have even attempted) shows that there is *not* a shortfall - the current numbers of confirmed supernova remnants in our galaxy (approx 250 and rising according to Green's latest catalogue of SNRs) is approaching the theoretical total in our galaxy [7], and that the difference in the two figures is easily explainable [8].

>My paper was necessarily condensed >from Davies but gave all the references to him and >his sources so people could check >them."

But it appears you did no checking of the sort over his paper. It is riddled with gross errors and incorrect and inaccurate conclusions. Even a curosry knowledge of astronomy would have picked them up.

But what is worse for Davies, what he calls a "Supernova Photo", at the top of his article, is nothing but an over-exposed image of a normal star, one of the stars in Orion's belt, Zeta Orionis (Alnitak). The nebulosity surrounding it is NGC 2024, an emission nebula and you can also see the Horsehead Nebula at the right-hand side. So before Davies has even written one word in his article, he has committed an elementary mistake so basic that even rudimentary knowledge of astronomy would have picked up. That Sarfati did not pick this up either doesn't reflect well upon him either.


>If you find his answer unsatisfactory, write to him. I've done as you asked, but that's >as far as I am willing to go in this matter.

I have e-mail Davies repeatedly for comments. I have to date (three years) not received any reply. Neither have I received any reply from Sarfati himself. The only creationist who has been honest enough to remove articles based upon Davies' original article is Wayne Spenser of DFW Creation Network.

Best,
Dave


[1] As the qualifications prominently quoted at the top of Davies' article shows.
[2] http://home.austarnet.com.au/stear/j'arkuse.htm
[3] A quick scan of AiG's website indicates dozens of articles from Sarfati on many subjects in science, all of them displaying the same basic ignorance and incorrect methodology he demonstrated in his original supernova article.
[4] Indicatally, Sarfati is wrong on a technicality. I am currently (June 2003) almost half-wat through a part-time degree in Physical Sciences (majoring in Astrophysics).
[5] For example, http://members.cox.net/ardipithecus/mine/quotemine.htm
[6] http://www.mrao.cam.ac.uk/surveys/snrs/
[7] http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/supernova/#BM103 and references therein.
[8] Again, see my original article for references.[/i]

Dave Moore posted his reply to what Jonathan Sarfati said about his Talk.Origins Supernova FAQ in the last post of this thread. It is now been added to the Archive itself at:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/supernova/sarfati.html

Moore posted in reply in a young-earth creationist controlled bulletin board which Sarfati is an active member. Does it surprise anyone that it got deleted? Links to the are provided.