text:
User:Phantym/Creation science rewrite proposal

Creation science, as described by the Webster's Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary, is a form of creationism (essentially young earth creationism) advocated as an alternative to the scientific theory of evolution, and holding that the creation of the universe and everything in it was supernatural and relatively recent. It is considered synonymous with scientific creationism, which Webster's describes as the belief that the account of creation in the early chapters of Genesis is scientifically as well as religiously valid and that it can be supported by scientific evidence apart from scriptural authority. Refer also to creation according to Genesis.

Principal subjects of research in scientific creationism are the age of the universe,the age of the Earth, macroevolution, a global flood and the origin of humanity. Since creation scientists regularly accuse secular scientists of holding too dear the theory of evolution, philosophy of science is also a common area of discussion within creationist literature.

The number of scientists populating the creation paradigm has risen sharply in recent decades, and hence the issues in scientific creationism have abounded. While speaking in generalities would take considerably less space, it also has proven to spawn inaccuracies and to require a pervasive use of weasel words from both sides. Therefore this article attempts to deal with specifics in as systematic a way as possible, describing positions held by both the proponents and detractors of creation science while recognizing that majority opinion or vocality does not necessarily portray truth.

Disclaimer
A few notes are in order regarding this topic due to its controversial nature.

 * 1) It is patently impossible to adequately discuss creation science without referencing creationist journals. It is practically impossible for a scientists to publish a creationist paper in a secular journal, and it is claimed that journals have even pulled support for papers post-approval when it was discovered that one or both of the authors had creationist leanings. Therefor, be advised that, while many of the papers under discussion are peer-reviewed, they are peer-reviewed by scientists who are themselves generally creationists, possibly removing one bias for another.
 * 2) When used here the term theory refers to a model which describes evidence and, hopefully, makes predictions. It is therefore not meant in the informal sense of conjecture, but neither is it meant to implied that has gained currency in the mainstream.  hypothesis could easily be used instead.
 * 3) Since the article is on creation science, the arguments that creationist scientists make have been highlighted, though there is also a section devoted to general challenges modern science makes. In both cases, where available, criticism from the other side has been furnished, along with links or references.
 * 4) This paper describes the principal work of creationists, which typically revolve around attempting to show difficulties with the superstructure of modern science. In general, creation sciences do not attempt to prove creation directly anymore than secular scientists attempt to prove uniformitarianism or abiogenesis. The research of creation scientists falls into two general areas
 * 5) Showing that their beliefs are not incompatible with known observations
 * 6) Showing that modern day observables challenge some basic tenets of modern science (e.g. an old earth, evolution, abiogenesis)
 * Both of these basic areas of research are treated here, but it must be understood that creationists typically rely on a type of argument from silence. They suggest that if the universe is young, abiogenesis is untenable, or the modern-day diversity of life cannot be explained via evolution, then their general axioms are more reasonable than any other way of explaining our modern earth. This argument by silence is, of course, not air-tight, but neither is it the case that, for example, a young earth theory of evolution exists.

History
Within the history of creationism, creationism was originally based purely on theology. The vast majority of Church Fathers and Reformers accepted Genesis straightforwardly, and even the few who did not, such as Origen and Augustine, defended the idea of an earth that was on the order of thousands of years old.

When geologists revised the age of the Earth to millions of years, some writers looked to studying geology within the Biblical timeframe detailed in the Ussher-Lightfoot calendar. In the first half of the nineteenth century, the leaders were the scriptural geologists in Britain. About a century later, the Canadian George McCready Price, wrote extensively on the subject. However, the concept only revived during the 1960s following the publication of The Genesis Flood by Henry M. Morris and John C. Whitcomb.

Subsequently, creation science has expanded into biology and cosmology. However, efforts to have it legislated to be taught in schools in the United States were eventually halted by the Supreme Court's interpretation of the first amendment in Edwards v. Aguillard 1987.

Paradigmatic Schematic
Both evolution and creation science suffer from misconceptions with regard to the construction of the superstructure of their theories as well as questions regarding the degree to which various parts can be called scientific or theories. Stephen Jay Gould described the secular side of this in the article Evolution as Fact and Theory,. Each superstructure has a collection of 'a priori' postulates, a collection of theories that support or are derived from those postulates as well as observational evidence, and a collection of predictions derived by those theories.

Postulates
Modern science is founded on several postulates, but the three that are most relevant regarding its difference with creationism are the principal of uniformitarianism and the idea that evolution and ambiogenesis together are completely responsible for all life on earth. The first is the belief that the processes that are currently if effect are the same as have been throughout history.

For scientific creationists, the a priori beliefs which inform their interpretations are a belief that life was created outside natural processes and that divine revelation describes history accurately.

It should emphasized that these five postulates are not scientific theories themselves, as scientists on both sides have claimed they are so plastic that they lack falsifiability. While most would agree that this is true of uniformitarianism, specific creation,ambiogenesis], and belief in [[divine revelation, some may object to claiming that evolution is not a theory. However, many scientists, including some of evolution's greatest proponents support this separation:

 * The fact of evolution is the backbone of biology, and biology is thus in the peculiar position of being a science founded on an unproved theory--is it then a science or a faith? Belief in the theory of evolution is exactly parallel to belief in special creation...

--L.H. Matthews, British biology and evolutionist, in his introduction to a reprinting of Origin of Species.

 * Darwin continually emphasized the difference between his two great and separate accomplishments: establishing the fact of evolution, and proposing a theory – natural selection – to explain the mechanism of evolution.

--Gould

 * The axiomatic nature of neo-Darwinism theory places the debate between evolutionists and creationists in a new perspective...it is not valid for creationists to demand proof of the axioms, and it is not valid for evolutionists to dismiss special creation as unproved so long as it is stated as an axiom.

--Evolution theorist C.L. Harris

Miles and Ehrlich stated bluntly [Evolution] is outside of empirical science, but not necessarily false in a 1967 article in Nature.

Theories
Each school of thought has several theories derived from or supporting it. A given scientist may only agree with some subset of the theories. For example, in secular science there is a large group of theorists, Neo-Darwinists that believe in gradualism, while there are several who have made scathing attacks against a slow, steady progress of evolution. Other theories attempting to describe how evolution might work include punctuated equilibrium, and the hopeful monster theory. In addition to positing methods to drive evolution, secular scientists often appeal to the theory of superposition, reliability of radiometric dating, the theoretic geologic column, and proposed Cosmology to support their overall viewpoint.

In creation science, theories involving accelerated radioactive decay, geologies incorporating a global flood, Creationist cosmologies, and a general young Earth theory are woven together to support their claims. Furthermore, creationists often appeal to information theory and attempt to use the Second Law of Thermodynamics to show that evolution is impossible.

Some of these theories are more scientific than others. An evaluative scale was given in an oft-repeated quote by Kitaigorodskii ''A first rate theory predicts, a second rate theory forbids,. and a third rate theory explains after the event.''

The minimum, then, is for a theory to describe data. The best scientific theories make predictions that can be tested and falsifiable hypotheses. Natural selection, gradualism, the theory of the geological column, singular accelerated nuclear decay, and a global flood have all been attacked as furnishing no predictions and/or no method to falsify them. Other theories on both sides, such as those suggesting a particular age for the earth or universe, have allowed accurate predictions well before known data.

It should be noted that, regardless of individual predictions made by creationist models in published literature, many scientists see Creationist science as hopelessly unscientific, viewing it as unfalsifiable and nonpredictive. A representative quote comes from Gould

 * "Scientific creationism" is a self-contradictory, nonsense phrase precisely because it cannot be falsified. I can envision observations and experiments that would disprove any evolutionary theory I know, but I cannot imagine what potential data could lead creationists to abandon their beliefs. Unbeatable systems are dogma, not science.

Predictions
For those theories described above which are fully scientific, a collection of specific predictions can and have been made. Creation scientists, using a young earth or young universe model, have accurately predicted magnetic fields of other planets prior to our observations, rates of helium diffusion ,, and radioactive carbon 14 retention in putatively ancient rocks.

Similarly, while its nature is such that it is very difficult for natural selection to predict things before they are otherwise known, the theory does explain in a reasonable fashion certain things that had not been known at Darwin's time. For example the "theory predicted that organisms in heterogeneous and rapidly changing environments should have higher mutation rates. This has been found in the case of bacteria infecting the lungs of chronic cystic fibrosis patients (Oliver et al. 2000)."

Finding What They Want To Find
Given the political, religious, and scientific implications of one or the other paradigm being accurate, scientists on both sides have fallen prey to "finding what they are searching for" when investigating evidence for their theories.

Anti-creationists have accused creationists of bad science or too quickly claiming certain problems prove the modern paradigm invalid. While the former would have to be addressed on a case by case basis, there is a history of creationists making claims that appear faulty, or at least hasty. One example of this is the view that the amount of lunar dust supports a young earth based on measurements of the amount of dust and meteor flux rates. However, later measurements suggested that early measurements were incorrect, invalidating this argument. Faulkner pointed this out, as well as tempered other claims (such as the claim that there should be fewer bright comets in an old solar system), in his article for the 4th international conference on creationism. An aggressive attack on the history of this problem, proposing multiple errors and indiscretions by creationists can be found here.

Creationists have also claimed that protein analysis shows certain organisms more closely related than they should be. Some of these claims have brought creationists under fire. An instance of this famous in evolution/creation circles is the claim that the enzyme that causes tearing shows humans to be more closely related to chickens than to monkeys. Evolutionists have attacked these claims as patently untrue, accusing the scientists involved of academic dishonesty. An article describing this situation can be found here.

On the other hand, this over-enthusiasm toward validating the fundamental postulates is certainly not limited to creationists. Piltdown Man is a prime example of the scientific community's lack of self-criticism, even in what should be extreme situations. The "discovery" of a human skull, orangutan jaw, and chimpanzee teeth, passed off as a single fossil showing a transitional form fooled the world's best biologists for over forty years, even after a fluorine absorption test dated the remains as modern. The hoax was exposed in 1953 by a team of 3 paleontologists. Millar writes

 * The molar surface were examined under a microscope. They were scarred by criss-cross scratches suggesting the use of an abrasive. 'The evidences of artificial abrasion immediately sprang to the eye' wrote Le Gros Clark. 'Indeed so obvious did they [the scratches] seem it may well be asked -- how was it that they had escaped notice before?' He answered his question with a beautiful simplicity. 'They had never been looked for...nobody previously had examined the Piltdown jaw with the idea of a possible forgery in mind, a deliberate fabrication.'

A more recent example of science finding what they are looking for is the Archaeoraptor Hoax, which fooled National Geographic into a 10 page color-photographic spread showing what was claimed to be a link between birds and dinosaurs. Storrs Olson, fossil bird expert from the Smithsonian Institute, is the only scientist on record to have attacked this claim. He did so in an open letter ''National Geographic is not receiving competent consultation in certain scientific matters. There is not one undisputed example of a dinosaur with feathers. None. The public deserves to know this.'' National Geographic admitted their error three months later.

Basis of Postulates
Secular science have attacked creationism because its postulates are supernatural rather than naturalistic. Occam's Razor has been invoked in an effort to show the holding of this postulate is irrational., but creationists have declared the same about evolution, using a collection of their own writings to indicate that holding evolution as a presupposition cannot be founded on evidence, but rather taste. One example of this is by D.M.S. Watson, who forthrightly said that evolution was a theory universally accepted not because it can be proved by logically coherent evidence to be true, but because the only alternative, special creation, is clearly incredible. Another example cited by creationists is Dr. Mark Ridley's admission in New Scientist that No real evolutionist uses the fossil record as evidence in favor of the theory of evolution as opposed to special creation. (See more discussion in the intermediary forms discussion, below).

Other Views
While this section has shown the similarities of these two structures of thought, it should not be assumed that they partition the beliefs of all scientists. Hugh Ross, for example, believes in both evolution and creation. Behe, author of the provocative Darwin's Black Box is certainly not a proponent of any young earth model, but makes a case in his book for why evolution simply cannot be true due to biochemical considerations. There are other scientists who have silently turned agnostic on the whole question, having not been compelled by the fossil record. Michael Denton, neither a Christian nor a creationist, wrote a vitriolic refutation to evolution in all its forms N.Macbeth, who also does not believe in creationism, rejects evolution in Darwin Retried, suggesting that having no theory whatsoever may be better than the existing one.

Uniformitarian Challenges
Scientific creationism, as discussed here, has two basic beliefs:

 * 1) All living things were created by God
 * 2) This creation was relatively recent

Secular scientists find the first statement unscientific in the sense that it is based on observations that cannot be reproduced, and for the same reason do not tend to invest energy in attacking it. However, the second basic claim has been vigilantly attacked on uniformitarian grounds.

Age of the Universe
Secular scientists date the universe as being approximately 14 billion years based on their iterpretation of redshift within standard cosmologies. This age is far beyond what a typical creation scientific would countenance, so they have proposed various Creationist cosmologies. Creationists indicate that these cosmologies not only account for the supposed great age of the universe, but also solve many known problems of the standard model.

Age of the Solar System
Another challenge levelled at creationists is that the size of the flux of interplanetary dust compared with the amount of dust on the lunar surface supports an old solar system. Creationists find themselves in an awkward situation dealing with this contention, since this was an argument that they themselves used for decades to show the opposite conclusion, prior to newer data being published. An article discussing this from an anti-creationist viewpoint can be found here.

While abandoning the active use of this argument, creationists have indicated that the effects of X-rays and ultraviolet rays should have also been creating moondust. No precise measurements of this effect are known, but British astronomer R.A. Lyttleton of Cambridge University estimated that it should account for a few ten-thousandths of an inch a year. To fit within their age estimates without further modification, uniformitarians would need a rate of production approximately 1/10000th of that value.

Radiometric dating
Uniformitarians use a group of models to date specimens of living or nonliving matter in the earth, but they appeal mostly to radiometric dating to determine the age of the oldest rocks. They consider the apparent degree of radioactivity as strong evidence of an Earth far older than what young earth creationists would allow.

Creationists have responded to this challenge in varying ways. Recently, the consensus viewpoint among creationists is to admit that there is significant evidence of radioactivity well in excess of what could be done at contemporary observed rates within the timescale they contend to be true. Some have proposed that the errors could be attributable to excess original daughter isotopes (though isochron dating methods minimize this) and accelerated decay caused by external phenomena. While astronomers have found that Magnestars emit radiation that could cause bouts of accelerated decay, and that these bouts may be more common than originally thought, the amount of heat produced by the radiation during the short period presents a problem for creationists. A more common approach is to allow for accelerated nuclear decay during the early portion of terrestrial history, when those elements which decay naturally were buried far below the crust (or far below the waters of the flood, in some models), therefore dealing with the heat problem.

One possibility for the accelerated decay comes with the possibility of variable speed of light. Other theories simply hypothesize that during certain periods of time God sped up the process, these are called singularities in creation science.

In addition to the above methods of dealing with this challenge, creationists have contended a whole raft of problems with both the older and newer methods of radiometric dating. They cite several examples of discordant dates when multiple methods are tried on the same rock, many anecdotes of dating techniques giving obviously wrong data (including some where rock formed after 1900 was dated as being over 3 million years, such as at Mt. Ngauruhoe. John Woodmorappe claims that discrepancy in data is prevalent, and accuses scientists of throwing out most of the inaccurate results, giving the illusion of accuracy. He also indicates how mixed families of rock can give anomalous isochron readings, some of which would indicate a negative age for certain rocks. His book, The Mythology of Modern Dating Methods documents approximately 200 quotes by secular geologists indicating problems with the various dating methods.  A sample of criticism for some of Woodmorappe's past work can be found here.

Finally, creationists have cited evidence that the C-14/C-12 isotopic ratio of carbon in today's atmosphere is higher than during previous times, both skewing the dating results and indicating a problem with the entire C-14 dating framework. They further claim that the lack of equilibrium itself poses difficulty for a naturalistic paradigm.

Dendrochronology
The discipline of deriving age by studying annual rings in trees has posed a different problem for creationists, as this dating method does not make use directly of accelerated decay. By using dendrochronology scientists have dated certain living trees to having ages of around 4600 years. This finding showed the current model for C-14 dating to be incorrect, so scientists recalibrated their C-14 model based on this tree.

The existence of this tree is not a significant problem for creationists, since such a dating would correspond to the dating they give for the flood. However, the further work, where dead trees in the same region were compared to paste together a chronology dating back approximately 10000 years is more a significant challenge.

A certain degree of wiggle-room was found when Aardsma first found that trees can produce multiple rings in a wet year. In the lab Lanmerts was able to show that trees can also show extra rings in short drought periods. Even with this wiggle-room, creation scientists accept that this puts the minimum age for life just barely within a range they are comfortable with.

Ice Core Aging
Another method of aging portions of the earth uses drilled ice cores, counting the layers which are presumed to be annual. Using this method, uniformitarians purport ages of over 100,000 years. Creationists, such as Dr. Michael Oard, contend that these laminations are from subannual events, including layering due to dust to be found in a post-flood ice age. He briefly discusses this theory briefly here.

Challenges by Creationists
Creation scientists level a collection of claims suggesting that the earth is younger than modern science typically suggests. These attempts have often been denigrated by mainstream scientists. It should be remembered when discussing the relevant criticism and responses that in a debate of 10 people versus 1, the one person must work 100 times as hard (as he has 10 times as many claims to refute and only 1/10 the manpower).

Helium retention
One of the products of nuclear decay causes production of Helium in rocks due to alpha emission. In the 1970s, Gentry pointed out that rocks appeared to be retaining more Helium than they should using standard models. Humphreys, Austin, Snelling, and Baumgardner, the first three professors at the Institute for Creation Research and the last a scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory, conceived a model using what was known regarding helium diffusion in zircons. Their report suggested that the amount of helium in the zircon was well over what would be observed in an old universe, citing a 5 order of magnitude error. Following the scientific method, they used their model to predict a collection of diffusion rates at hitherto untested temperatures. Humphreys claims these predictions were validated in a separate experiment reported in his 2004 report.

Kevin Henke, an instructor at the University of Kentucky, spent 25000 words challenging these results. Humphreys responded in a 2005 report. It should be noted that Henke's attack was on the 2003 model, not the putatively correct predictions found after the original report.

C14 Retention
Carbon-14 has a very small half life compared to other radioactive elements used to date specimens. The half life is small enough that no detectable carbon-14 should be present in specimens that are considered millions of years old.

Baumgardner, Snelling, Humphreys, and Austin, after noticing that C-14 abundances quoted in secular scientific journals consistently were higher than expected for certain organic materials, performed an experiment in which 10 pieces of coal were tested in a secular, high precision lab. These scientists had noticed that the distribution of abundances of C14 in substances derived from living animals (such as coal) was a different distribution from material that was from non-biological pre-cambrium specimens. This would suggest that the abundances being found by labs were not all do to a uniform contamination.

They report that the coal was measured as having an abundance well above the blank used by the laboratory representing unknown contamination. Their report can be found here.

Critics suggest that coal could have had carbon created by bacteria or fungus in the coal. More information can be found at Talk Origins. However, it should be pointed out that in the course of their investigations, creationists found that the labs themselves cannot explain the level of "contamination" that is found in the carbon they use for their "blanks."

Similarly, excess carbon has been found in wood, gas, and even a diamond. Critics have given various methods of contamination arguments, but creation scientists claim that,at least in the case of the diamond, their explanation based on contamination is dubious as they posit the molecular structure of diamond makes contamination impossible.

There have also been more sensationalistic claims of C-14 anomalies in other materials, such as claims made that C 14 dating gave different dates for the inside and outside of a seashell, etc. Anti-creationists tend to have little problems finding explanations for these types of observations.

Halos
Radioactive inclusions in rock often cause concentric rings of discoloration due to the damage caused by alpha particles as they are emitted by the radioactive substance. Creationists uses these halos in several ways to suggest problems with the standard model.

Polonium Halos
Gentry claims that certain halos found in rock are caused by Polonium, whose isotopes have half lives too small to accommodate the slow cooling assumed by most geologists. He explains his argument more fully at his halos site, where the book on the subject is now available as well.

Critics have suggested that the polonium diffused from a nearby Uranium deposit through fissures or cracks. They also contend that the halos may not be caused by Polonium at all. One such critique can be found here. Gentry responds to much of the criticism of his model on his reports page.

Explosive Halos
Another claim by creation scientists is that there are specimens of rock in which, due the pressure caused by alpha decay, a region of rock has been cracked or fragmented. The creationist argument is that these cracks and fragmentations do not occur along cleavage lines or natural areas of weakness, showing that the nuclear decay occurred in a short period of time.

Dwarf, X, and other Halos
The final observation made by creationists is that certain halos do not appear to correspond to any known nuclear reaction, suggesting that there may be something important that science is missing or misunderstanding regarding the processes involved.

At least one critic, Thomas A. Baillieul, has suggested that these types of haloes actually suggest that the whole idea of haloes being created by radioative inclusions [which has been considered the standard for nearly a century] may be refuted by these abnormal haloes. His paper can be found here.

Comets
For years creationists have indicated that there are too many bright, low-period comets to support an old solar system. The idea given is that a comet gets burned by the sun, and hence the shorter the period the fewer passes a comet can withstand before dying. As there is no observed mechanism for replacing dead comets, the solar system should have already run out of comets.

Scientists, in response to this known problems, have hypothesized first an Oort cloud and then a Kuiper Belt, where they hypothesize comets to exist and occasionally fall into our solar system. While neither of these have been found, they have also not been disproven.

Interplanetary Dust
Creationists have indicated that there is too much interplanetary dust in the solar system. The solar wind, solar gravitation and the Poynting-Robertson effect remove dust from the solar system, while comets and asteroids can contribute to the dust. Am argument was issued by Robertson and Slusher in a 100 page monograph confirming that equations derived nearly fifty years earlier were essentially correct and the solar system was limited to a few thousand years without some hitherto unknown massive replacement method. At least half of this conclusion is supported by secular scientists who hold that the lifespan for a typical dust particle is about 10,000 years. .

Mainstream scientists have not suggested other major sources of dust, and so one must assume they consider the dust created by meteors and comets sufficient.

A related, but qualitatively different, argument based on flux of particles (not their lifetime) was used at one point by creation scientists but more recent data have forced creation scientists to abandon themoondust argument.

Distance to Moon
Both creation and secular scientists have indicated that there is a problem with the distance the moon is from the Earth. In particular, its rate of departure seems high. This was noted by Kerr in a 1983 article for Science magazine. De Young extrapolated plots in 1990 When new data was found using putatively old varves, De Young's extrapolation was supported. This appears to put the Moon in contact with the earth only 1.5 billion years ago. An article critical of this approach, suggesting that it does not take dissipation and deformation appropriately into consideration can be found here.

Origin of Life
Creationists claim that evolutionists cannot produce a reasonable method for life to have begun. At one point, due to Miller's experiments, it was thought that life could have begun by fortunate interactions in the early earth. Study of microbiology has put that supposition under a cloud. As stated by Klaus Dose,

 * More than 30 years of experimentation on the origin of life in the fields of chemical and molecular evolution have led to a better perception of the immensity of the problem of the origin of life on Earth rather than to its solution. At present all discussions on principal theories and experiments in the field either end in a stalemate or in a confession of ignorance.

Creationists have also issued several probabilistic studies indicating the difficulty of any such phenomenon. Some contend that these models do not accurately portray the modelling involved. Neither side supposes to have a clear understanding of what the chemistry and biology involved is, but many scientists who believe in evolution have chosen to remain agnostic on the actual origin of life.

Scientists have measured the mutation rate of mitochondria DNA and have attempted to use that date to determine how old the human race is. Evolutionists currently hypothesize that all currently living humans are the progeny of a particular female; however, this does not imply that there was only one original mother of all humanity. They conjecture that there were many women at one point, but the progeny of all but one of them died out. Original methods of measuring mutation rate indicated an age of 100,000 to 200,000 years, but newer research suggests that the mutation rate may be much higher, indicating an age of approx. 6000 years. An article giving information from both sides can be found here.

Transitional Forms
While evolution and natural selection are different concepts, creationists tend to attack them in the same breath. The most reiterated empirical evidence is the lack of transitional forms. In this arena Creationists have largely be helped by evolutionists decrying the state of the fossil record.

Some biologists aver that transitional forms exist, some suggest several do, but that is certainly not the consensus. The eminent Pierre Grasse, editor of the 28 volume Traite de Zoologie, one-time president of the Academie des Science attacked modern evolution theory on the grounds that it assumed to know much more than it did. Gould in an often quoted statement calls the lack of transitional forms the "trade secret" in paleontology. It should be noted that this is not in an effort to support creationism, but rather an explanation of why he felt the need to design a different theory to accommodate this absence.

Valentine, in What Darwin Began writes

 * The fossil record is of little use in providing direct evidence of the pathways of descent of the phyla or of invertebrate classes. Each phylum with a fossil record had already evolved its characteristic body plan when it first appeared, so far as we can tell from the fossil remains, and no phylum is connected to any other via intermediate fossil types. Indeed, none of the invertebrate classes can be connected with another class by series of intermediates

Colin Patterson, senior paleontologists at the British Museum of Natural History who wrote to a reader in 1979 the following passage

 * I fully agree with your commentary on the lack of evolutionary transitions in my book. If I knew of any, fossil or living, I would have certainly included them. I will lay it on the line, there is not one such fossil for which one could make a watertight argument.

(Note, occasionally the above quote has been used without the final for which one could make a watertight argument Evolutionists have attacked creationists for this apparent distortion, but a quick search on the net indicates that most, though not all, give the full quote).

It is claimed that Patterson asked the assemblage of paleontologists at a 1998 conference whether anyone knew of a genuine transitional form, receiving no answer but silence. This report is only partially substantiated.

Evolutionists have dealt with this concern in two divergent ways. Some have decided that evolution is simply a postulate which must be believed due to lack of reasonable alternatives. Others, such as Gould, have claimed that evolution does not take place in small gradual steps. Rather, he and others believe that evolution may take place in small populations for short bursts of time before a plateau is reached. This means that transitional forms would be few in number because they only exists in small populations for small lengths of time.

This latter viewpoint is known as punctuated equillibrium, and is discussed in great detail here; it became a major rival to Neo-Darwinism in the latter part of the 20th century.

Open Dialogue
Creation scientists have accused mainstream scientists of being too reluctant to admit problems with their own theories. They believe that scientists in one discipline accept too easily the assumed structures present in other fields when doing their work. A growing number of scientists on both sides are recognizing a need to reevaluate the confidence that science has in some of its basic presumptions, leading to An open letter to the scientific community. A page indicating that over 220 scientist, many from mainstream universities and colleges, can be found here

"Operational science" and "Origins science"
In addition to allowing for supernatural events in history, creation scientists also distinguish between what they call "operational science" and "origins science." Operational science, according to creation scientists, involves the laws and phenomena of nature which are repeatable and testable through experiment; for instance, the laws of gravity, chemistry, and microevolution. However, creation scientists assert that issues of "origins science" are different from issues of "operational science," because they involve one-time events which cannot be observed or repeated, but can only be inferred from the evidence. Asserted examples of such issues in origins science are common ancestry, the age of the Earth, and historical geology, in which the ability of scientists to study the issues is limited by the available evidence, because the actual events cannot be observed first-hand. It is argued that in issues of "origins science," conclusions are much more tentative due to the unrepeatable nature of the events, that the conclusions are therefore much more subject to philosophical bias than in "operational science," and that "origins science" therefore admits multiple possible interpretations of the evidence.

Science and religion
Creation science is often portrayed as a "religion" placing itself in conflict with "science." According to the this view, creation science is religious, rather than scientific, because it stems from the Bible, a "religious book." Acceptance of creation is thus "by faith," and not by the application of the scientific method. For example, the National Academy of Sciences wrote:
 * "Religious opposition to evolution propels antievolutionism. Although antievolutionists pay lip service to supposed scientific problems with evolution, what motivates them to battle its teaching is apprehension over the implications of evolution for religion."

Alternatively, others, including creation scientists, attribute the conflict between the theories to varying philosophical presuppositions which, they argue, affect a scientist's interpretation of the evidence.

For example, David Bergman, a creationist physicist, attributes the conflict to two fundamentally different worldviews: on the one hand, atomism, which excludes supernatural action in the universe and holds that random events occur in nature; on the other hand, Creationism, which holds that the universe depends for its existence on God, and that the laws of nature are a result of his design and plan. Evolution, he argues, is merely a modern iteration of the ancient philosophy of Lucretius articulated in his work, On the Nature of Things.

Under this view, creation science is not "non-science" opposed to the "science" of evolution. Instead, both are "sciences" which are grounded in opposing philosophies, so that the same methods and same evidence lead to opposite conclusions due to the underlying philosophical assumptions of the scientist.

Creation science is related to intelligent design, which differs in that its proponents claim to not make any theological assumptions, and intelligent design does not necessarily oppose evolution (evolutionary creationism). Critics note that the intelligent design movement was started (by many of the same individuals previously campaigning for creationism) after attempts to get creation science in public classrooms met major opposition due to constitutional church-state separation issues in the United States.

The mainstream scientific community considers creation science to be religiously motivated anti-science propaganda.

Neutral

 * Edwards v. Aguillard 1987 U.S. Supreme Court ruling preventing the teaching of creation science in public school science classrooms

Creation science

 * Institute for Creation Research
 * Answers in Genesis
 * Creation Science Evangelism
 * The True.Origin Archive
 * List of Articles Supporting Creation
 * Creation Research Society
 * CreationDigest.com
 * Creation Insights
 * Center for Scientific Creation
 * "Absolutely reliable scientifically"
 * Gentry's Halo Site
 * Darwinism Refuted
 * A Creation Perspective
 * Creation Connection
 * Fish don't walk
 * The creation explanation

Criticism

 * No Answers in Genesis website
 * Creationism vs. Science
 * Talk.Origins Archive
 * Index of Creationist claims with rebuttals
 * Talkorigins.org article on What is Creationism?
 * National Science Teachers Association Position Statement: The Teaching of Evolution
 * National Association of Biology Teachers Statement on Teaching Evolution
 * National Center for Science Education
 * About creationism
 * creationism
 * Science and Creationism: A View from the National Academy of Sciences by the Steering Committee on Science and Creationism, National Academy of Sciences
 * Links to Islamic creationist and anti-creationists websites
 * Skeptics Dictionary Introduction and criticism of creationism.
 * Origin Myths Introduction to a number of alternative origin myths from varied cultures around the world

Categories & interwikis
Remove  tags if/when this article is promoted, and this note obviously. Dunc|☺ 14:00, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

&


text:
Shawn Stockman

Shawn Patrick Stockman (born September 26, 1972) is an American singer, songwriter and record producer. He is best known as a member of the vocal group Boyz II Men.

In addition to Boyz II Men, Stockman was a member of the group Black Men United. He was also a judge on the NBC television show The Sing-Off for five seasons (2009–2014).

Early life and education
Stockman, a native of Southwest Philadelphia, started singing with the Philadelphia Boys Choir & Chorale at the age of 8. He attended CAPA (Creative and Performing Arts High School) in South Philadelphia, where he met the other members of Boyz II Men, originally calling themselves Unique Attraction.

Boyz II Men
Stockman was recruited to join the R&B vocal group Boyz II Men in 1988, when members George Baldi, Jon Shoats and Marguerite Walker all left the group due to graduating from high school. He was asked to join after the members saw him sing a solo in the school choir. After signing to Motown in 1991, they released their debut album, Cooleyhighharmony. Boyz II Men would quickly start to climb music charts with songs such as; I'll Make Love to You (1994) and Water Runs Dry (1995). In 1996, the group released the single One Sweet Day featuring Mariah Carey. Boyz II Men are best known for their vocal harmonies. Stockman sings tenor vocals in the group.

Stockman still tours with Boyz II Men as of 2023.

Later works
Stockman recorded a solo album as a side project during the late 1990s, but the LP was never released.

Stockman appeared in the group Black Men United with his group Boyz II Men, while recording their II album for the hit single "U Will Know" which appeared on the Jason's Lyric soundtrack (1994). He also wrote and sang the song "Visions of a Sunset" for the Mr. Holland's Opus soundtrack (1996).

Stockman wrote the songs "Forever", "Hot Thing" and "Let It Go" (which was played during the Showtime film Seventeen Again). He also recorded a cover version of Beyoncé's hit song "If I Were a Boy", and contributed vocals on the title track of the Foo Fighters album Concrete and Gold (2017).

Stockman started his own record label called Soul Chemistry Projects. He released solo albums Shawn in 2018, and Forward in April 2020.

The Sing-Off
In 2009, it was announced that Stockman would be a judge on the NBC show The Sing-Off. He remained a judge on the show until its cancellation in 2014.

Personal life
Stockman is married to Sharonda Jones. He is the cousin of Atlanta-based neo soul singer Anthony David.

Stockman is an honorary member of Phi Beta Sigma (2021).

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Shawn Stockman


text: Talk:Chimnyu of Baekje

title: Talk:Chimnyu of Baekje


text:
User talk:Sjakkalle/TestSR

This "template" is intended for use when a user experiments, then immediately reverts it. For such situations the regular test template is a little too harsh, even though a friendly pointer to the sandbox is in order. The template has one parameter, which gives a link to the article which was self reverted. Sjakkalle 15:05, 30 May 2005 (UTC)

title: User talk:Sjakkalle/TestSR


text:
Talk:Joe Sparks (video game developer)

Untitled
Why did you edit the page? All the stuff I put was true. Yes R+DD attracted a cult like following, yes he's won awards, and yes Dickie and Jackie is his upcoming show! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.131.29.242 (talk • contribs) 15:08, 30 May 2005

WikiProject class rating
This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as stub, and the rating on other projects was brought up to Stub class. BetacommandBot 11:04, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Image copyright problem with Image:Radiskull and Devil Doll Coffee.jpg
The image Image:Radiskull and Devil Doll Coffee.jpg is used in this article under a claim of fair use, but it does not have an adequate explanation for why it meets the requirements for such images when used here. In particular, for each page the image is used on, it must have an explanation linking to that page which explains why it needs to be used on that page. Please check

 * That there is a non-free use rationale on the image's description page for the use in this article.
 * That this article is linked to from the image description page.

This is an automated notice by FairuseBot. For assistance on the image use policy, see Media copyright questions. --03:48, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

title: Talk:Joe Sparks (video game developer)


text: User talk:70.26.190.147

title: User talk:70.26.190.147


text:
ISO 10993

The ISO 10993 set entails a series of standards for evaluating the biocompatibility of medical devices to manage biological risk. These documents were preceded by the Tripartite agreement and is a part of the international harmonisation of the safe use evaluation of medical devices. For the purpose of the ISO 10993 family of standards, biocompatibility is defined as the "ability of a medical device or material to perform with an appropriate host response in a specific application".

ISO 10993-1:2009 & FDA endpoints for consideration
The following table provides a framework for the development of a biocompatibility evaluation. Different biological endpoints may require evaluation for particular medical devices, including either additional or fewer endpoints than indicated. If it is unclear in which category a device falls, consulting device-specific guidances or contacting the appropriate US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) review division for more information is possible. The table "Endpoints to be addressed in a biological risk assessment" was revised by the 2018 edition of ISO 10993-1. The selection of endpoints for the biocompatibility evaluation is determined by the nature of body contact (e.g. implant device) and contact duration (e.g. long term contact of more than 30 days).

List of the standards in the 10993 series
Part 1: Evaluation and testing within a risk management process

Part 2: Animal welfare requirements

Part 3: Tests for genotoxicity, carcinogenicity and reproductive toxicity

Part 4: Selection of tests for interactions with blood

Part 5: Tests for in vitro cytotoxicity.

Part 6: Tests for local effects after implantation

Part 7: Ethylene oxide sterilization residuals

Part 8: Selection of reference materials (withdrawn)

Part 9: Framework for identification and quantification of potential degradation products

Part 10: Tests for skin sensitization

Part 11: Tests for systemic toxicity

Part 12: Sample preparation and reference materials (available in English only)

Part 13: Identification and quantification of degradation products from polymeric medical devices

Part 14: Identification and quantification of degradation products from ceramics

Part 15: Identification and quantification of degradation products from metals and alloys

Part 16: Toxicokinetic study design for degradation products and leachables

Part 17: Establishment of allowable limits for leachable substances

Part 18: Chemical characterization of medical device materials within a risk management process

Part 19: Physico-chemical, morphological and topographical characterization of materials

Part 20: Principles and methods for immunotoxicology testing of medical devices

Part 22: Guidance on nanomaterials

Part 23: Tests for irritation

Part 33: Guidance on tests to evaluate genotoxicity

title: ISO 10993


text:
History of general relativity

General relativity is a theory of gravitation that was developed by Albert Einstein between 1907 and 1915, with contributions by many others after 1915. According to general relativity, the observed gravitational attraction between masses results from the warping of space and time by those masses.

Before the advent of general relativity, Newton's law of universal gravitation had been accepted for more than two hundred years as a valid description of the gravitational force between masses, even though Newton himself did not regard the theory as the final word on the nature of gravity. Within a century of Newton's formulation, careful astronomical observation revealed unexplainable differences between the theory and the observations. Under Newton's model, gravity was the result of an attractive force between massive objects. Although even Newton was bothered by the unknown nature of that force, the basic framework was extremely successful at describing motion.

However, experiments and observations show that Einstein's description accounts for several effects that are unexplained by Newton's law, such as minute anomalies in the orbits of Mercury and other planets. General relativity also predicts novel effects of gravity, such as gravitational waves, gravitational lensing and an effect of gravity on time known as gravitational time dilation. Many of these predictions have been confirmed by experiment or observation, while others are the subject of ongoing research.

General relativity has developed into an essential tool in modern astrophysics. It provides the foundation for the current understanding of black holes, regions of space where gravitational attraction is so strong that not even light can escape. Their strong gravity is thought to be responsible for the intense radiation emitted by certain types of astronomical objects (such as active galactic nuclei or microquasars). General relativity is also part of the framework of the standard Big Bang model of cosmology.

Early investigations
The first relativistic theory of gravity was proposed by Henri Poincaré in 1905. He published a Lorentz invariant theory on four-dimensional spacetime, where gravity is transmitted by gravitational waves that travel at the speed of light.

As Einstein later said, the reason for the development of general relativity was the preference of inertial motion within special relativity, while a theory which from the outset prefers no particular state of motion appeared more satisfactory to him. So, while still working at the patent office in 1907, Einstein had what he would call his "happiest thought". He realized that the principle of relativity could be extended to gravitational fields.

Consequently, in 1907 he wrote an article, published in 1908, on acceleration under special relativity. In that article, he argued that free fall is really inertial motion, and that for a freefalling observer the rules of special relativity must apply. This argument is called the equivalence principle. In the same article, Einstein also predicted the phenomenon of gravitational time dilation.

In 1911, Einstein published another article expanding on the 1907 article. There, he considered the case of a uniformly accelerated box not in a gravitational field, and noted that it would be indistinguishable from a box sitting still in an unchanging gravitational field. He used special relativity to show that clocks at the top of a box accelerating upward would run faster than clocks at the bottom. He concluded that the rate at which time passes depends on the position in a gravitational field, and that the difference in rate is proportional to the gravitational potential to a first approximation.

The article also predicted the deflection of light by massive bodies, e.g., Jupiter, the Sun. Although the approximation was crude, it allowed him to calculate that the deflection is nonzero. Einstein urged astronomers to attempt direct observation of light deflection of fixed stars near the Sun during solar eclipses when they would be visible. German astronomer Erwin Finlay-Freundlich publicized Einstein's challenge to scientists around the world.

In October 1911, Freundlich contacted astronomer Charles D. Perrine in Berlin to inquire as to the suitability of examining existing solar eclipse photographs to prove Einstein's prediction of light deflection. Perrine, the director of the Argentine National Observatory at Cordoba, had participated in four solar eclipse expeditions while at the Lick Observatory, in 1900, 1901, 1905, and 1908. "...he had become, in the opinion of the director of the Lick Observatory, W. W. Campbell, an observer without peer in the field of solar eclipses." He did not believe existing eclipse photos would be useful in proving Einstein's claim. In 1912 Freundlich asked if Perrine would include observation of light deflection as part of his program for the solar eclipse of October 10, 1912, in Brazil. W. W. Campbell, director of the Lick Observatory, loaned Perrine its intramercurial camera lenses. Perrine and the Cordoba team were the only eclipse expedition to construct specialized equipment dedicated to observing light deflection. Unfortunately all the expeditions experienced heavy rain which prevented any observations. Nevertheless, Perrine was the first astronomer to make a dedicated attempt to observe light deflection to test Einstein's prediction.

Two years later, the three observatory directors, Perrine, Freundlich, and Campbell included light deflection in their expeditions to the Russian Empire for the solar eclipse of August 21, 1914. Unfortunately due to clouds and the outbreak of World War I, no results were possible. However, Perrine was able to take the first photographs in an attempt to verify Einstein's prediction of light deflection. A light cloud cover prevented determining accurate star positions.

In hindsight, the occluding weather and lack of results in 1912 and 1914 favored Einstein. If clear photographs and measurable results had been possible, Einstein's 1911 prediction might have been proven wrong. The amount of deflection that he calculated in 1911 was too small (0.83 seconds of arc) by a factor of two because the approximation he used does not work well for things moving at near the speed of light. When Einstein completed the full theory of general relativity in 1915, he rectified this error and predicted the correct amount of light deflection caused by the Sun (1.75 seconds of arc). Eddington and Dyson in 1919 and W. W. Campbell in 1922 were able to compare their results to Einstein's corrected prediction.

Another of Einstein's notable thought experiments about the nature of the gravitational field is that of a rotating disk (a variant of the Ehrenfest paradox). He imagined an observer performing experiments on a rotating turntable. He noted that such an observer would find a different value for the mathematical constant π than the one predicted by Euclidean geometry. The reason is that the radius of a circle would be measured with an uncontracted ruler, but, according to special relativity, the circumference would seem to be longer because the ruler would be contracted. Since Einstein believed that the laws of physics were local, described by local fields, he concluded from this that spacetime could be locally curved. This led him to study Riemannian geometry, and to formulate general relativity in this language.

Developing general relativity
In 1912, Einstein returned to Switzerland to accept a professorship at his alma mater, ETH Zurich. Once back in Zurich, he immediately visited his old ETH classmate Marcel Grossmann, now a professor of mathematics, who introduced him to Riemannian geometry and, more generally, to differential geometry. On the recommendation of Italian mathematician Tullio Levi-Civita, Einstein began exploring the usefulness of general covariance (essentially the use of tensors) for his gravitational theory. For a while, Einstein thought that there were problems with the approach, but he later returned to it and, by late 1915, had published his general theory of relativity in the form in which it is used today. This theory explains gravitation as the distortion of the structure of spacetime by matter, affecting the inertial motion of other matter.

During World War I, the work of Central Powers scientists was available only to Central Powers academics, for national security reasons. Some of Einstein's work did reach the United Kingdom and the United States through the efforts of the Austrian Paul Ehrenfest and physicists in the Netherlands, especially 1902 Nobel Prize-winner Hendrik Lorentz and Willem de Sitter of Leiden University. After the war, Einstein maintained his relationship with Leiden University, accepting a contract as an Extraordinary Professor; for ten years, from 1920 to 1930, he travelled to the Netherlands regularly to lecture.

In 1917, several astronomers accepted Einstein's 1911 challenge from Prague. The Mount Wilson Observatory in California, United States, published a solar spectroscopic analysis that showed no gravitational redshift. In 1918, the Lick Observatory, also in California, announced that it too had disproved Einstein's prediction, although its findings were not published.

However, in May 1919, a team led by the British astronomer Arthur Stanley Eddington claimed to have confirmed Einstein's prediction of gravitational deflection of starlight by the sun while photographing a solar eclipse with dual expeditions in Sobral, northern Brazil, and Príncipe, a west African island. Nobel laureate Max Born praised general relativity as the "greatest feat of human thinking about nature"; fellow laureate Paul Dirac was quoted saying it was "probably the greatest scientific discovery ever made".

There have been claims that scrutiny of the specific photographs taken on the Eddington expedition showed the experimental uncertainty to be comparable to the magnitude of the effect Eddington claimed to have demonstrated, and that a 1962 British expedition concluded that the method was inherently unreliable. The deflection of light during a solar eclipse was confirmed by later, more accurate observations. Some resented the newcomer's fame, notably some nationalistic German physicists, who later started the Deutsche Physik (German Physics) movement.

General covariance and the hole argument
By 1912, Einstein was actively seeking a theory in which gravitation was explained as a geometric phenomenon. At the urging of Tullio Levi-Civita, Einstein began by exploring the use of general covariance (which is essentially the use of curvature tensors) to create a gravitational theory. However, in 1913 Einstein abandoned that approach, arguing that it is inconsistent based on the "hole argument". In 1914 and much of 1915, Einstein was trying to create field equations based on another approach. When that approach was proven to be inconsistent, Einstein revisited the concept of general covariance and discovered that the hole argument was flawed.

The development of the Einstein field equations
When Einstein realized that general covariance was tenable, he quickly completed the development of the field equations that are named after him. However, he made a now-famous mistake. The field equations he published in October 1915 were

 * $$R_{\mu\nu} = \kappa T_{\mu\nu}\,$$,

where $$R_{\mu\nu}$$ is the Ricci tensor, $$T_{\mu\nu}$$ the energy–momentum tensor and $$\kappa$$ is Einstein gravitational constant. This predicted the non-Newtonian perihelion precession of Mercury, and so had Einstein very excited. However, it was soon realized that they were inconsistent with the local conservation of energy–momentum unless the universe had a constant density of mass–energy–momentum. In other words, air, rock and even a vacuum should all have the same density. This inconsistency with observation sent Einstein back to the drawing board and, on 25 November 1915, Einstein presented the updated Einstein field equations to the Prussian Academy of Sciences:

 * $$R_{\mu\nu} - {1\over 2}R g_{\mu\nu} = \kappa T_{\mu\nu}$$,

where $$R$$ is the Ricci scalar and $$g_{\mu\nu}$$ the metric tensor. With the publication of the field equations, the issue became one of solving them for various cases and interpreting the solutions. This and experimental verification have dominated general relativity research ever since.

Einstein and Hilbert
In the last year of Einstein's work on general relativity he met with and corresponded with the German mathematician David Hilbert. Hilbert had been working on a unified field theory based on the ideas of Gustav Mie; he derived the theory of general relativity from an elegant variational principle almost simultaneously with Einstein's discovery of the theory. The timing of the correspondence and publications has led to a number of in depth historical analyses.

Sir Arthur Eddington
In the early years after Einstein's theory was published, Sir Arthur Eddington lent his considerable prestige in the British scientific establishment in an effort to champion the work of this German scientist. Because the theory was so complex and abstruse (even today it is popularly considered the pinnacle of scientific thinking; in the early years it was even more so), it was rumored that only three people in the world understood it. There was an illuminating, though probably apocryphal, anecdote about this. As related by Ludwik Silberstein, during one of Eddington's lectures he asked "Professor Eddington, you must be one of three persons in the world who understands general relativity." Eddington paused, unable to answer. Silberstein continued "Don't be modest, Eddington!" Finally, Eddington replied "On the contrary, I'm trying to think who the third person is."

The Schwarzschild solution
Since the field equations are non-linear, Einstein assumed that they were unsolvable. However, Karl Schwarzschild discovered in 1915 and published in 1916 an exact solution for the case of a spherically symmetric spacetime surrounding a massive object in spherical coordinates. This is now known as the Schwarzschild solution. Since then, many other exact solutions have been found.

The expanding universe and the cosmological constant
In 1922, Alexander Friedmann found a solution in which the universe may expand or contract, and later Georges Lemaître derived a solution for an expanding universe. However, Einstein believed that the universe was static, and since a static cosmology was not supported by the general relativistic field equations, he added a cosmological constant $$\Lambda$$ to the field equations, which became:

 * $$R_{\mu\nu} - {1\over 2}R g_{\mu\nu} + \Lambda g_{\mu\nu} = \kappa T_{\mu\nu}$$.

This permitted the creation of steady-state solutions, but they were unstable: the slightest perturbation of a static state would result in the universe expanding or contracting. In 1929, Edwin Hubble found evidence for the universe expanding. This resulted in Einstein dropping the cosmological constant, referring to it as "the biggest blunder in my career". At the time, it was an ad hoc hypothesis to add in the cosmological constant, as it was only intended to justify one result (a static universe).

More exact solutions
Progress in solving the field equations and understanding the solutions has been ongoing. The solution for a spherically symmetric charged object was discovered by Reissner and later rediscovered by Nordström, and is called the Reissner–Nordström solution. The black hole aspect of the Schwarzschild solution was very controversial, and Einstein did not believe that singularities could be real. However, in 1957 (two years after Einstein's death), Martin Kruskal published a proof that black holes are called for by the Schwarzschild solution. Additionally, the solution for a rotating massive object was obtained by Roy Kerr in the 1960s and is called the Kerr solution. The Kerr–Newman solution for a rotating, charged massive object was published a few years later.

Testing the theory
The first piece of evidence in support of general relativity came from its correct prediction of the anomalous rate of precession of Mercury's orbit. Subsequently, Arthur Stanley Eddington's 1919 expedition confirmed Einstein's prediction of the deflection of light by the Sun during the total solar eclipse of 29 May 1919, which helped to cement the status of general relativity as a viable theory. Since then, many observations have shown agreement with the predictions of general relativity. These include studies of binary pulsars, observations of radio signals passing the limb of the Sun, and even the global positioning system.

The theory predicts gravitational waves, which are ripples in the curvature of spacetime that propagate as waves, travelling outward from the source. The first observation of gravitational waves, which came from the merger of two black holes, was made on 14 September 2015 by the Advanced LIGO team, corroborating another prediction of the theory 100 years after it was published.

The first image of a black hole, the supermassive one at the center of galaxy Messier 87, was published by the Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration on 10 April 2019.

Alternative theories
There have been various attempts to find modifications to general relativity. The most famous of these are the Brans–Dicke theory (also known as scalar–tensor theory), and Rosen's bimetric theory. Both of these theories proposed changes to the field equations of general relativity, and both suffer from these changes permitting the presence of bipolar gravitational radiation. As a result, Rosen's original theory has been refuted by observations of binary pulsars. As for Brans–Dicke (which has a tunable parameter ω such that ω = ∞ is the same as general relativity), the amount by which it can differ from general relativity has been severely constrained by these observations. Many other alternatives to general relativity have also been ruled out by analyses of the neutron-star merger GW170817.

In addition, general relativity is inconsistent with quantum mechanics, the physical theory that describes the wave–particle duality of matter, and quantum mechanics does not currently describe gravitational attraction at relevant (microscopic) scales. There is a great deal of speculation in the physics community as to the modifications that might be needed to both general relativity and quantum mechanics in order to unite them consistently. The speculative theory that unites general relativity and quantum mechanics is usually called quantum gravity, prominent examples of which include string theory and loop quantum gravity.

Golden age
Kip Thorne identifies the "golden age of general relativity" as the period roughly from 1960 to 1975, during which the study of general relativity, which had previously been regarded as something of a curiosity, entered the mainstream of theoretical physics. During this period, many of the concepts and terms which continue to inspire the imaginations of gravitation researchers and the general public were introduced, including black holes and gravitational singularities. At the same time, in a closely related development, the study of physical cosmology entered the mainstream and the Big Bang became well established.

Fulvio Melia refers frequently to the "golden age of relativity" in his book Cracking the Einstein Code. Andrzej Trautman hosted a relativity conference in Warsaw in 1962 to which Melia refers:
 * General relativity moved very successfully from that meeting in Warsaw, hot on the heels of the Pound–Rebka experiment, and entered its golden age of discovery that lasted into the mid-1970s.

Roy Kerr, protagonist of the book, contributed an Afterword, saying of the book: "It is a remarkable piece of writing capturing beautifully the period we now refer to as the golden age of relativity."

title: History of general relativity


text:
Talk:Gene Pelowski

Untitled
I removed the following sentence from the article because I don't think it is true: "(Minnesota state legislators are legally required to hold a full-time job in addition to their legislatural duties)". Jonathunder 03:51, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Removed speculation on Rep. Pelowski's retirement per WP:CBALL. La Maupin (talk) 11:57, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

title: Talk:Gene Pelowski