Post by solidsquid on Jul 21, 2006 18:54:40 GMT -5
This is from another board where someone posted these 14 points from yet another board where they were having a debate.
It wasn’t until I nearly finished this rebuttal that I realized this was an article from the ICR by Russell Humphreys. All well. I addressed it to the person who posted it on whatever board it was debate on.
Part I:
(emphasis mine)
Evolutionary theory makes no such assertion. You must know what the hell you are talking about before you attack it. Otherwise you look like an idiot. A formal definition of evolution is:
Source – Audesirk, T., Audesirk, G., & Byers, B. (2002). Biology: Life on earth. (6th ed.). Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall.
Nothing about the universe there. So you think maybe, just maybe, you don’t know what the hell you’re talking about? I think that’s the case.
If and only if you reject all notion of reality will this be plausible.
Put down the bible, stop drooling for Jesus and listen up. You’re about to get a dose of cold, hard scientific evidence (with ample independent backing) that destroys this ridiculous young earth crap.
There is no longer a “winding-up dilemma”. This was only a problem that plagued earlier inquiry. Like problems of all blossoming theories, it has been ironed out with research.
Before going on, I will point out that the speed of galaxy rotation and galaxy formation has absolutely NO bearing on the veracity of evolutionary theory. You don’t even know what theory you are attacking.
The responsible party would be ye old gravity. Not only from the center of our galaxy but from neighboring galaxies as well. The density wave theory not only works mathematically and coincides with observable phenomenon but it has been shown to work along with known workings of gravity to form spirals in simulations time and time again:
Source - www.space.com/scienceastronomy/milkyway_simulation_020807.html
Source – Williams, P. and Nelson, A. (2001). Numerical simulation of the formation of a spiral galaxy. Astronomy and Astrophysics, 374, 839-860.
The latest calculations put the age of the milky way at approximately 13 billion years old.
Source – www.sciam.com/askexpert_question.cfm?articleID=0008A68A-8C7F-1C72-9EB7809EC588F2D7
The smaller details are being smoothed out through research into dark matter and EM plasma theory. However, none of this is relevant to the discussion of evolutionary theory.
Supernovas themselves contradict a young universe and DO NOT fit within a biblical timeline. The main source for this odd assertion is the work of Keith Davies whose work was not only methodologically flawed and has mathematical errors, but utilized outdated data to begin with. A detailed examination of the supernovae argument:
www.talkorigins.org/faqs/supernova/#BM10
An entire catalogue of supernovae can be found here:
www.mrao.cam.ac.uk/surveys/snrs/
In 2001 a supernova was observed and has been calculated to be approximately 11 billion years old. It was found utilizing the Hubble telescope:
Source - www.lbl.gov/Science-Articles/Archive/oldest-1a-supernova.html
Much older than even a liberal biblical timeline. With this also – it has NO bearing on the validity of evolutionary theory.
Another item that has NOTHING to do with evolutionary theory. Your idea of what evolution is shows that you have no clue of what you’re even arguing against and only makes you look stupid.
Source - Chaisson, E. and McMillan, S. (2002). Astronomy Today. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall.
Source – www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CE/CE261.html
Just within the last decade, over 1100 trans-Neptunian objects have been observed.
Source – Morbidelli, A. (2006). Origin and dynamical evolution of comets and their resevoirs. Retreived June 6, 2006 from arxiv.org/PS_cache/astro-ph/pdf/0512/0512256.pdf.
Ah, ye old oceanic sedimentation rate argument. Sorry, but it’s bunk. Two words refute this argument – plate tectonics. The sedimentation is the thinnest near the mid-Atlantic ridge and gets deeper as you move away.
Source – www.talkorigins.org/faqs/hovind/howgood-yea2.html#proof21
Sedimentation accumulation is not some simplistic process of simply mud accumulating on the sea floor:
Source – www.ngdc.noaa.gov/mgg/sedthick/sedthick.html
A map showing sedimentation thickness. Notice the deep blue as opposed to the bright orange:
www.ngdc.noaa.gov/mgg/image/sedthick9.jpg
The most accumulation against the continents is in the direction of the plate movement. For example sedimentation is thicker within the Gulf of Mexico and around the Americas, this is the direction of the spreading from the Mid-Atlantic ridge.
The retarded notion that this geological process somehow invalidates evolutionary theory is really reaching. A little ignorance is a dangerous thing. A lot of ignorance is cataclysmic.
So the seas aren’t salty enough? That’s just pitiful. The calculations done by Austin and Humphreys conveniently leave out several factors. Glenn Morton adequately addresses their flubs:
www.asa3.org/archive/evolution/199606/0051.html
It might be good to note that Glenn is a petroleum geophysicist and a former YEC.
Some quick history for you:
Source – Monroe, J. and Wicander, R. (2001). Physical Geology: Exploring the Earth. (4th Ed.). Pacific Grove: Brooks/Cole.
One of the biggest source of error here is the assumption of a constant and consistent rate of salt entering the ocean through the millions of years:
Source – Strahler, A. (1987). Science and Earth History – The Evolution/Creation Controversy. New York: Prometheus.
Ah, Barnes' pet theory. Too bad he used bad information and bad methodology. The earth's magnetic field varies and has reversed itself approximately The assumption that it will decay in 20,000 years is assuming that the magnetic field has no source of renewal. It does. The earth is a geodynamo. The ability for the earth to accomplish this has been researched and validated. Computer modeling has further validated the model:
Source – www.scientificamerican.com/askexpert_question.cfm?articleID=0002B1A2-BD8F-1C71-9EB7809EC588F2D7&catID=3&topicID=22
Weakening of the field itself is a sign that a reversal is on it's way.
Source – Monroe, J. and Wicander, R. (2001). Physical Geology: Exploring The Earth (4th ed.). Pacific Grove: Brookes/Cole.
In order to make this data valid, it would have to ignore well established geological theories such as plate tectonics all together. The data is outdated, ignores overwhelming contradictory evidence and Barnes' support such as a book by J. A. Jacobs completely ignores that Jacobs changed his opinion in a 1975 edition of his book.
As for a backward extrapolation:
Source – Brush, S. (1983). Ghosts from the Nineteenth Century: Creationist Arguments for a Young Earth. In Godfrey, L. (Ed.) Scientists Confront Creationism. New York: W. W. Norton.
It wasn’t until I nearly finished this rebuttal that I realized this was an article from the ICR by Russell Humphreys. All well. I addressed it to the person who posted it on whatever board it was debate on.
Part I:
I found this really interesting and wondered what you all thought?
Here are fourteen natural phenomena which conflict with the evolutionary idea that the universe is billions of years old.
Here are fourteen natural phenomena which conflict with the evolutionary idea that the universe is billions of years old.
(emphasis mine)
Evolutionary theory makes no such assertion. You must know what the hell you are talking about before you attack it. Otherwise you look like an idiot. A formal definition of evolution is:
…the descent of modern organisms with modification from preexisting life-forms; strictly speaking, any change in the proportions of different genotypes in a population from one generation to the next.
Source – Audesirk, T., Audesirk, G., & Byers, B. (2002). Biology: Life on earth. (6th ed.). Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall.
Nothing about the universe there. So you think maybe, just maybe, you don’t know what the hell you’re talking about? I think that’s the case.
The point is that the maximum possible ages are always much less than the required evolutionary ages, while the Biblical age (6,000 years) always fits comfortably within the maximum possible ages. Thus, the following items are evidence against the evolutionary time scale and for the Biblical time scale.
If and only if you reject all notion of reality will this be plausible.
Much more young-world evidence exists, but I have chosen these items for brevity and simplicity. Some of the items on this list can be reconciled with the old-age view only by making a series of improbable and unproven assumptions; others can fit in only with a recent creation.
Put down the bible, stop drooling for Jesus and listen up. You’re about to get a dose of cold, hard scientific evidence (with ample independent backing) that destroys this ridiculous young earth crap.
1. Galaxies wind themselves up too fast.
The stars of our own galaxy, the Milky Way, rotate about the galactic center with different speeds, the inner ones rotating faster than the outer ones. The observed rotation speeds are so fast that if our galaxy were more than a few hundred million years old, it would be a featureless disc of stars instead of its present spiral shape.1 Yet our galaxy is supposed to be at least 10 billion years old. Evolutionists call this "the winding-up dilemma," which they have known about for fifty years. They have devised many theories to try to explain it, each one failing after a brief period of popularity. The same "winding-up" dilemma also applies to other galaxies. For the last few decades the favored attempt to resolve the puzzle has been a complex theory called "density waves."1 The theory has conceptual problems, has to be arbitrarily and very finely tuned, and has been called into serious question by the Hubble Space Telescope's discovery of very detailed spiral structure in the central hub of the "Whirlpool" galaxy, M51.2
The stars of our own galaxy, the Milky Way, rotate about the galactic center with different speeds, the inner ones rotating faster than the outer ones. The observed rotation speeds are so fast that if our galaxy were more than a few hundred million years old, it would be a featureless disc of stars instead of its present spiral shape.1 Yet our galaxy is supposed to be at least 10 billion years old. Evolutionists call this "the winding-up dilemma," which they have known about for fifty years. They have devised many theories to try to explain it, each one failing after a brief period of popularity. The same "winding-up" dilemma also applies to other galaxies. For the last few decades the favored attempt to resolve the puzzle has been a complex theory called "density waves."1 The theory has conceptual problems, has to be arbitrarily and very finely tuned, and has been called into serious question by the Hubble Space Telescope's discovery of very detailed spiral structure in the central hub of the "Whirlpool" galaxy, M51.2
There is no longer a “winding-up dilemma”. This was only a problem that plagued earlier inquiry. Like problems of all blossoming theories, it has been ironed out with research.
Before going on, I will point out that the speed of galaxy rotation and galaxy formation has absolutely NO bearing on the veracity of evolutionary theory. You don’t even know what theory you are attacking.
The responsible party would be ye old gravity. Not only from the center of our galaxy but from neighboring galaxies as well. The density wave theory not only works mathematically and coincides with observable phenomenon but it has been shown to work along with known workings of gravity to form spirals in simulations time and time again:
As the model runs, regions of instability are created in the distribution of dark matter and gas particles. The instabilities cause the particles to collapse under gravity, forming a proto-galaxy, Wright explained. The gas in then cools and stars are born. It takes just over a billion years for four spiral arms to develop.
Source - www.space.com/scienceastronomy/milkyway_simulation_020807.html
A simulation is described in which the numerical galaxy formed compares favourably in every measurable respect with contemporary bright spiral galaxies, including the formation of a distinct stellar bulge and large scale spiral arm shocks in the gas component.
Source – Williams, P. and Nelson, A. (2001). Numerical simulation of the formation of a spiral galaxy. Astronomy and Astrophysics, 374, 839-860.
The latest calculations put the age of the milky way at approximately 13 billion years old.
Fortunately, nearly every one agrees that spiral patterns extract gravitational energy from the field of a galaxy. The inexorable force of gravity tries to pull the stars in a galaxy closer towards the center. The gravitational force is balanced by the orbital motion of a star (like a stone whirled on a string) which generally prevents it from settling any deeper on average into the galaxy. The spiral arms are a kind of catalyst that brakes the orbital motion of some stars, allowing them to sink slightly closer to the middle. Those with technical training will realize that if some stars lose angular momentum others must gain equally and, in fact, the stars that lose are near the inner end of the arms while those at the outer end gain. The gravitational stresses arising from the spiral density wave provide the torque.
Source – www.sciam.com/askexpert_question.cfm?articleID=0008A68A-8C7F-1C72-9EB7809EC588F2D7
The smaller details are being smoothed out through research into dark matter and EM plasma theory. However, none of this is relevant to the discussion of evolutionary theory.
2. Too few supernova remnants.
According to astronomical observations, galaxies like our own experience about one supernova (a violently-exploding star) every 25 years. The gas and dust remnants from such explosions (like the Crab Nebula) expand outward rapidly and should remain visible for over a million years. Yet the nearby parts of our galaxy in which we could observe such gas and dust shells contain only about 200 supernova remnants. That number is consistent with only about 7,000 years worth of supernovas.3
According to astronomical observations, galaxies like our own experience about one supernova (a violently-exploding star) every 25 years. The gas and dust remnants from such explosions (like the Crab Nebula) expand outward rapidly and should remain visible for over a million years. Yet the nearby parts of our galaxy in which we could observe such gas and dust shells contain only about 200 supernova remnants. That number is consistent with only about 7,000 years worth of supernovas.3
Supernovas themselves contradict a young universe and DO NOT fit within a biblical timeline. The main source for this odd assertion is the work of Keith Davies whose work was not only methodologically flawed and has mathematical errors, but utilized outdated data to begin with. A detailed examination of the supernovae argument:
www.talkorigins.org/faqs/supernova/#BM10
An entire catalogue of supernovae can be found here:
www.mrao.cam.ac.uk/surveys/snrs/
In 2001 a supernova was observed and has been calculated to be approximately 11 billion years old. It was found utilizing the Hubble telescope:
With a redshift (or z) of about 1.7, says Nugent, "supernova 1997ff is some 11.3 billion years old, much older -- and much fainter -- than the previous record of z equals 1.2, which corresponds to an age of about 9.8 billion years old." He adds that a supernova at redshift 1.7 "is too far away to have been visible from the surface of the Earth. Only a space-based telescope could have found it.
Source - www.lbl.gov/Science-Articles/Archive/oldest-1a-supernova.html
Much older than even a liberal biblical timeline. With this also – it has NO bearing on the validity of evolutionary theory.
3. Comets disintegrate too quickly.
According to evolutionary theory, comets are supposed to be the same age as the solar system, about five billion years. Yet each time a comet orbits close to the sun, it loses so much of its material that it could not survive much longer than about 100,000 years. Many comets have typical ages of less than 10,000 years.4 Evolutionists explain this discrepancy by assuming that (a) comets come from an unobserved spherical "Oort cloud" well beyond the orbit of Pluto, (b) improbable gravitational interactions with infrequently passing stars often knock comets into the solar system, and (c) other improbable interactions with planets slow down the incoming comets often enough to account for the hundreds of comets observed.5 So far, none of these assumptions has been substantiated either by observations or realistic calculations. Lately, there has been much talk of the "Kuiper Belt," a disc of supposed comet sources lying in the plane of the solar system just outside the orbit of Pluto. Some asteroid-sized bodies of ice exist in that location, but they do not solve the evolutionists' problem, since according to evolutionary theory, the Kuiper Belt would quickly become exhausted if there were no Oort cloud to supply it.
According to evolutionary theory, comets are supposed to be the same age as the solar system, about five billion years. Yet each time a comet orbits close to the sun, it loses so much of its material that it could not survive much longer than about 100,000 years. Many comets have typical ages of less than 10,000 years.4 Evolutionists explain this discrepancy by assuming that (a) comets come from an unobserved spherical "Oort cloud" well beyond the orbit of Pluto, (b) improbable gravitational interactions with infrequently passing stars often knock comets into the solar system, and (c) other improbable interactions with planets slow down the incoming comets often enough to account for the hundreds of comets observed.5 So far, none of these assumptions has been substantiated either by observations or realistic calculations. Lately, there has been much talk of the "Kuiper Belt," a disc of supposed comet sources lying in the plane of the solar system just outside the orbit of Pluto. Some asteroid-sized bodies of ice exist in that location, but they do not solve the evolutionists' problem, since according to evolutionary theory, the Kuiper Belt would quickly become exhausted if there were no Oort cloud to supply it.
Another item that has NOTHING to do with evolutionary theory. Your idea of what evolution is shows that you have no clue of what you’re even arguing against and only makes you look stupid.
Astronomers have estimated that this loss of material will destroy Halley's comet in about 5000 orbits, or 40,000 years.
Source - Chaisson, E. and McMillan, S. (2002). Astronomy Today. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall.
The comets that entered the inner solar system a very long time ago indeed have evaporated. However, new comets enter the inner solar system from time to time. The Oort Cloud and Kuiper Belt hold many comets deep in space, beyond the orbit of Neptune, where they do not evaporate. Occasionally, gravitational perturbations from other comets bump one of them into a highly elliptical orbit, which causes it to near the sun.
Source – www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CE/CE261.html
Just within the last decade, over 1100 trans-Neptunian objects have been observed.
Source – Morbidelli, A. (2006). Origin and dynamical evolution of comets and their resevoirs. Retreived June 6, 2006 from arxiv.org/PS_cache/astro-ph/pdf/0512/0512256.pdf.
4. Not enough mud on the sea floor.
Each year, water and winds erode about 20 billion tons of dirt and rock from the continents and deposit it in the ocean.6 This material accumulates as loose sediment on the hard basaltic (lava-formed) rock of the ocean floor. The average depth of all the sediment in the whole ocean is less than 400 meters.7 The main way known to remove the sediment from the ocean floor is by plate tectonic subduction. That is, sea floor slides slowly (a few cm/year) beneath the continents, taking some sediment with it. According to secular scientific literature, that process presently removes only 1 billion tons per year.7 As far as anyone knows, the other 19 billion tons per year simply accumulate. At that rate, erosion would deposit the present mass of sediment in less than 12 million years. Yet according to evolutionary theory, erosion and plate subduction have been going on as long as the oceans have existed, an alleged three billion years. If that were so, the rates above imply that the oceans would be massively choked with sediment dozens of kilometers deep. An alternative (creationist) explanation is that erosion from the waters of the Genesis flood running off the continents deposited the present amount of sediment within a short time about 5,000 years ago.
Each year, water and winds erode about 20 billion tons of dirt and rock from the continents and deposit it in the ocean.6 This material accumulates as loose sediment on the hard basaltic (lava-formed) rock of the ocean floor. The average depth of all the sediment in the whole ocean is less than 400 meters.7 The main way known to remove the sediment from the ocean floor is by plate tectonic subduction. That is, sea floor slides slowly (a few cm/year) beneath the continents, taking some sediment with it. According to secular scientific literature, that process presently removes only 1 billion tons per year.7 As far as anyone knows, the other 19 billion tons per year simply accumulate. At that rate, erosion would deposit the present mass of sediment in less than 12 million years. Yet according to evolutionary theory, erosion and plate subduction have been going on as long as the oceans have existed, an alleged three billion years. If that were so, the rates above imply that the oceans would be massively choked with sediment dozens of kilometers deep. An alternative (creationist) explanation is that erosion from the waters of the Genesis flood running off the continents deposited the present amount of sediment within a short time about 5,000 years ago.
Ah, ye old oceanic sedimentation rate argument. Sorry, but it’s bunk. Two words refute this argument – plate tectonics. The sedimentation is the thinnest near the mid-Atlantic ridge and gets deeper as you move away.
The thickest sediment hugs the continental margins, which certainly have more than a few thousand years of accumulation. Try around 150 million year's worth! Funny that the measured rate of sea floor spreading, when extrapolated backwards in time, gives the same age for the Atlantic sea floor as does radiometric dating. Funny, how the sediment gets thicker and thicker as one moves away from the sea floor spreading zone! That is, the farther we get from the Mid-Atlantic ridge the thicker the sediment tends to get; that thickness correlates with increased age of the sea floor as determined by radiometric dating as well as the known rate at which the Atlantic is widening.
Source – www.talkorigins.org/faqs/hovind/howgood-yea2.html#proof21
Sedimentation accumulation is not some simplistic process of simply mud accumulating on the sea floor:
The distribution of sediments in the oceans is controlled by five primary factors:
1. Age of the underlying crust
2. Tectonic history of the ocean crust
3. Structural trends in basement
4. Nature and location of sediment source, and
5. Nature of the sedimentary processes delivering sediments to depocenters
1. Age of the underlying crust
2. Tectonic history of the ocean crust
3. Structural trends in basement
4. Nature and location of sediment source, and
5. Nature of the sedimentary processes delivering sediments to depocenters
Source – www.ngdc.noaa.gov/mgg/sedthick/sedthick.html
A map showing sedimentation thickness. Notice the deep blue as opposed to the bright orange:
www.ngdc.noaa.gov/mgg/image/sedthick9.jpg
The most accumulation against the continents is in the direction of the plate movement. For example sedimentation is thicker within the Gulf of Mexico and around the Americas, this is the direction of the spreading from the Mid-Atlantic ridge.
The retarded notion that this geological process somehow invalidates evolutionary theory is really reaching. A little ignorance is a dangerous thing. A lot of ignorance is cataclysmic.
5. Not enough sodium in the sea.
Every year, rivers8 and other sources9 dump over 450 million tons of sodium into the ocean. Only 27% of this sodium manages to get back out of the sea each year.9,10 As far as anyone knows, the remainder simply accumulates in the ocean. If the sea had no sodium to start with, it would have accumulated its present amount in less than 42 million years at today's input and output rates.10 This is much less than the evolutionary age of the ocean, three billion years. The usual reply to this discrepancy is that past sodium inputs must have been less and outputs greater. However, calculations that are as generous as possible to evolutionary scenarios still give a maximum age of only 62 million years. Calculations for many other seawater elements give much younger ages for the ocean.
Every year, rivers8 and other sources9 dump over 450 million tons of sodium into the ocean. Only 27% of this sodium manages to get back out of the sea each year.9,10 As far as anyone knows, the remainder simply accumulates in the ocean. If the sea had no sodium to start with, it would have accumulated its present amount in less than 42 million years at today's input and output rates.10 This is much less than the evolutionary age of the ocean, three billion years. The usual reply to this discrepancy is that past sodium inputs must have been less and outputs greater. However, calculations that are as generous as possible to evolutionary scenarios still give a maximum age of only 62 million years. Calculations for many other seawater elements give much younger ages for the ocean.
So the seas aren’t salty enough? That’s just pitiful. The calculations done by Austin and Humphreys conveniently leave out several factors. Glenn Morton adequately addresses their flubs:
www.asa3.org/archive/evolution/199606/0051.html
It might be good to note that Glenn is a petroleum geophysicist and a former YEC.
Some quick history for you:
The best known calculations for the oceans’ age were made by the Irish geologist John Joly in 1899. He reasoned that Earth’s ocean waters were originally fresh and their present salinity was the result of dissolved salt being carried into the ocean basins by rivers. By measuring the amount of salt in the world’s rivers, and knowing the volume of the ocean water and its salinity, Joly calculated that it would have taken at least 90 million years for the oceans to reach their present salinity level. This was still much younger than the now accepted age of 4.6 billion years for the Earth, mainly because Joly had no way of calculating how much salt had been recycled or the amount of salt stored in continental salt deposits and seafloor clay deposits.
Source – Monroe, J. and Wicander, R. (2001). Physical Geology: Exploring the Earth. (4th Ed.). Pacific Grove: Brooks/Cole.
One of the biggest source of error here is the assumption of a constant and consistent rate of salt entering the ocean through the millions of years:
Because of continual motions of lithospheric plates, the ancient continental shields have traveled widely over the globe throughout Precambrian and younger geologic time.
Source – Strahler, A. (1987). Science and Earth History – The Evolution/Creation Controversy. New York: Prometheus.
6. The earth's magnetic field is decaying too fast.
The total energy stored in the earth's magnetic field ("dipole" and "non-dipole") is decreasing with a half-life of 1,465 (± 165) years.12 Evolutionary theories explaining this rapid decrease, as well as how the earth could have maintained its magnetic field for billions of years are very complex and inadequate. A much better creationist theory exists. It is straightforward, based on sound physics, and explains many features of the field: its creation, rapid reversals during the Genesis flood, surface intensity decreases and increases until the time of Christ, and a steady decay since then.13 This theory matches paleomagnetic, historic, and present data, most startlingly with evidence for rapid changes.14 The main result is that the field's total energy (not surface intensity) has always decayed at least as fast as now. At that rate the field could not be more than 20,000 years old.15
The total energy stored in the earth's magnetic field ("dipole" and "non-dipole") is decreasing with a half-life of 1,465 (± 165) years.12 Evolutionary theories explaining this rapid decrease, as well as how the earth could have maintained its magnetic field for billions of years are very complex and inadequate. A much better creationist theory exists. It is straightforward, based on sound physics, and explains many features of the field: its creation, rapid reversals during the Genesis flood, surface intensity decreases and increases until the time of Christ, and a steady decay since then.13 This theory matches paleomagnetic, historic, and present data, most startlingly with evidence for rapid changes.14 The main result is that the field's total energy (not surface intensity) has always decayed at least as fast as now. At that rate the field could not be more than 20,000 years old.15
Ah, Barnes' pet theory. Too bad he used bad information and bad methodology. The earth's magnetic field varies and has reversed itself approximately The assumption that it will decay in 20,000 years is assuming that the magnetic field has no source of renewal. It does. The earth is a geodynamo. The ability for the earth to accomplish this has been researched and validated. Computer modeling has further validated the model:
The first dynamically-consistent, three-dimensional computer simulation of the geodynamo (the mechanism in the Earth's fluid outer core that generates and maintains the geomagnetic field) was accomplished and published by Paul H. Roberts of the University of California at Los Angeles and myself in 1995. We programmed supercomputers to solve the large set of nonlinear equations that describe the physics of the fluid motions and magnetic field generation in the Earth's core. The simulated geomagnetic field, which now spans the equivalent of over 300,000 years, has an intensity, a dipole-dominated structure and a westward drift at the surface that are all similar to the Earth's real field. Our model predicted that the solid inner core, being magnetically coupled to the eastward fluid flow above it, should rotate slightly faster than the surface of the Earth. This prediction was recently supported by studies of seismic waves passing through the core.
Source – www.scientificamerican.com/askexpert_question.cfm?articleID=0002B1A2-BD8F-1C71-9EB7809EC588F2D7&catID=3&topicID=22
Weakening of the field itself is a sign that a reversal is on it's way.
Source – Monroe, J. and Wicander, R. (2001). Physical Geology: Exploring The Earth (4th ed.). Pacific Grove: Brookes/Cole.
In order to make this data valid, it would have to ignore well established geological theories such as plate tectonics all together. The data is outdated, ignores overwhelming contradictory evidence and Barnes' support such as a book by J. A. Jacobs completely ignores that Jacobs changed his opinion in a 1975 edition of his book.
As for a backward extrapolation:
If any backwards extrapolation of these data were justified (which, of course, it is not), it would have to be linear rather than exponential. In order to find a field as large as eighteen thousand gauss, we would then have to make the dipole moment about sixty thousand times as great as it is now, which means we would have to go back more than 100 million years. In other words, an empirical analysis of the magnetic data, ignoring all theories, would immediately refute the creationists' short time scale.
Source – Brush, S. (1983). Ghosts from the Nineteenth Century: Creationist Arguments for a Young Earth. In Godfrey, L. (Ed.) Scientists Confront Creationism. New York: W. W. Norton.