The failure of Jason Lisle's ASC paradigm

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I have decided to go public with this information. My purpose is to make what I believe to be the truth available to anyone who has been interested in the topic of Jason Lisle’s Anisotropic Synchrony Convention. Comments on topic are welcome.

Lisle’s ASC paradigm is multiverse

Jason Lisle presented his formal ASC cosmology nine years ago. [Lisle 2010] In it, he rightly declares that under the conventionality thesis “both ASC and Einstein synchronization [ESC] are legitimate synchrony conventions”. Special relativity demands it. This means that the universe he constructs must accommodate both conventional views.

Except, it does not.

The problem becomes abundantly clear when Lisle moves the discussion from ASC synchrony to what he calls his ASC model. He writes

Since the ASC model has the stars being made on the fourth day of the Creation Week, and since light travel-time is zero under the selected synchrony convention …the universe appears at all distances as it is now, having aged an equal amount everywhere. Therefore, when we look at any region of the universe, we are seeing it at an age of roughly 6,000 years.

By this statement and the ensuing discussion, Lisle makes it clear that he actually believes light’s one-way speed to Earth from distant galaxies is infinite. Of course, that is his prerogative, but what he fails to recognize is that in so stipulating, his young universe now violates the conventionality thesis because it preempts a conversion to Einstein synchrony. The only way he can convert to ESC is to invoke a completely new and different universe - one that predates his ASC universe by billions of years. This he does in his seminal paper. [Newton 2001]

In fact, Lisle cannot convert his young ASC universe to any synchrony convention without invoking a new universe each time in the process. This can only mean that in order for Lisle to appear literate in relativity and to uphold the conventionality thesis he must invoke infinite universes – a multiverse – each specifically designed for conversion to the infinite range of synchrony conventions available.

Lisle’s conversion from ASC to ESC evokes points of interest. First, one notes that ASC and ESC are two extremes in an infinite range of synchrony conventions, and that by validating both extremes, Lisle has necessarily validated infinite universes. Second, since he sees indication of youth in his ASC universe and, apparently, great age in the ESC universe, the important question becomes, how much in common can we assume from both systems – and, by extension, from all infinite universes? Third, since both his ASC and ESC universes seem to be centered on Earth, does that make the earth some kind of ‘portal’ to the multiverse? Fourth, to ufologists and paranormalists, could that idea provide impetus to their view that Earth is being visited by alien life?

Indeed, Lisle’s young-universe spin on the conventionality of simultaneity may have rewarded him with unexpected surprises. A distinction between common practice in physics and Lisle’s approach to physics serves to illustrate how this may have happened. For example, it is instructive to note that ESC’ers who must accommodate ASC do not experience the trouble visited upon ASC’ers trying to accommodate ESC. Physics properly applied, the common approach, is that equal accommodation is made for all conversions to all synchrony conventions only in an old universe that is single.

Specifically, Lisle has ignored the two-way speed of light in his construct. The actual uni -verse we observe and reside in is based on the constancy of a two-way light speed that always returns a single value c. Hence, it is also necessarily quite old. By constructing his young universe solely on the one-way speed of light – which by convention can hold infinite values – Lisle has fragmented the universe into infinite universes, hoping to find evidence that we are in the youngest one.

Here, two critical observations are in order. First, if Lisle denies that his paradigm is multiverse, then it is falsified. Since, on its own, his young ASC universe violates the conventionality thesis, infinite supplemental universes are required to bring it into physical conformity. Hence, no multiverse, no model. Second, if Lisle subsumes his multiverse under the universe proper, he concedes an ancient universe. In subsumption, the unique ‘sum’ of Lisle’s infinite universes would render a single physical system the age of its oldest member universe, ESC – around 13 billion years. As such, he could still claim – that is, in a purely phenomenological sense – that the Creation clock did not start until 13 billion years after God created the galaxies. However, his claim would not change the actual physical age of the universe.

Have creationists finally found their long-sought-after young universe? To ask Lisle, one would think so. But at what cost? If Lisle has stumbled onto a multiverse, it would arguably be the biggest self-own in the 60-year history of creation science.

Lisle, J.P. 2010. Anisotropic Synchrony Convention—A solution to the distant starlight problem. Answers Research Journal 2:191–207.

Newton, R. 2001. Distant starlight and Genesis: Conventions of time measurement. TJ 15, no. 1:80–85

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I’m curious what the @physicists think about this post. It is directly relevant to the discussion here: One and Two Way Speed of Light. I was honestly confused by that discussion, so I hope we can sort this out.

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There is actually a substantial difference between what we talked about in the other thread and what is being discussed in this one. What we talked about in the other thread is the ASC itself, which is not a creationist invention and has been part of mainstream physics for decades. There is nothing wrong (so far) with the ASC itself.

What is being rebutted in this thread by @r_speir is the ASC model, which is a creationist invention that includes ASC in addition to things like 7 day creation week etc etc. We barely touched the ASC model in the other thread.

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This poster is correct. I took pains to clearly identify Lisle and his paradigm in my write-up so as to distinguish between his false construct and the scientifically sound anisotropic propagation of light. Make no mistake: I do not believe that light propagates anisotropically, but the fact that I cannot disprove it, says I should be wise enough to leave that argument alone. Again, my specific focus is on the failure of Lisle’s paradigm. It has no scientific basis in fact. Only when he linked it with the discussion of the scientifically sound conventionality thesis and conventions of simultaneity did the waters become muddy and cover over his faulty science. He basically fooled us all in the process. Not that I think he was trying to do that, because I also believe he fooled himself.

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Both the ASC and ESC are perfectly valid conventions and you can convert between them without invoking multiple universes. What you can’t do is assume one convention and then complain that another gives you the wrong answers. But this is precisely what you are doing here.

I’ll give you an example to illustrate:

Einstein and Lisle both measure the same table top. Einstein found the length to be 100, whereas Lisle reported it to be 1. Must Lisle must now invoke an additional 99 tables to get the right answer?

Of course not. Both answers are correct, it’s just different conventions were adopted (Einstein’s measurement was in centimeters and Lisle’s in meters).

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How do you explain the fact that galaxies farther away are younger and more primitive? This is the point at which Lisle’s idea falls apart, or at least it is one place.

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I don’t think @r_speir has any problems with that - or the fact that the ASC vs ESC choice is just a convention. This is just the ASC - which he has stated that

His problem is with Lisle’s ASC model which is not just a convention. @r_speir claims that there is internal inconsistency between Lisle’s claims that:

  1. You can pick whatever synchronization convention you want, i.e. what he calls “the conventionality thesis”
  2. The Universe in the ASC model (which again, includes Young Earth, 7 day creation week, etc in addition to the conventionality thesis)
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Having trouble parsing claim #2. Something missing?

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I am just reading from @r_speir’s post. He’ll probably be the person you want to talk to for more details. The full claim #2 is that:

i.e. He does not think that the Universe in the ASC model is compatible with the “conventionality thesis”.

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Einstein and Lisle both measure the same table top. Einstein found the length to be 100, whereas Lisle reported it to be 1. Must Lisle must now invoke an additional 99 tables to get the right answer?

I am glad this protest came up because it is the perfect example of how the world of synchrony conventions confuses and disorients the facts, and people find themselves agreeing with something like Lisle’s paradigm against their better judgment because they can’t find their way back to reality.

It all boils down to this: We are not dealing with measuring length, but rather “time elapsed over a given length”. Now let’s insert a time value for Einstein’s 100 and Lisle’s 1 and see what we get.

The distance from a distant galaxy to Earth is “x”. Lisle says light travels from the galaxy towards Earth for 1 second over length “x” to arrive here. But remember, Lisle truly believes this. He really believes light is traveling at a super-fast rate to get here. Therefore, the age of his universe is truly 1 second old.

Now ask him to convert to Einstein synchrony that says the universe is 100 seconds old. He can’t do it. Since his universe is truly 1 second old, he must now invoke an entirely different universe that predates his – one that extends 100 seconds into the past . Worse, he can’t convert to any other synchrony convention without invoking a new universe each time in the process because he has chosen the youngest universe possible. Thus, he must invoke infinite universes to satisfy the demand of infinite synchrony conventions.

Now, take Einstein who says distance “x” from the galaxy to Earth is covered by light in 100 seconds. Ask him to convert to Lisle’s convention which says light arrives in 1 second. He answers, “Sure, no problem. Done.” Ask him to convert back to Einstein synchrony. He says, “Sure, no problem. Done.” You ask, “How are you able to do that so easily and Lisle could not?”

And here is the golden answer…

Einstein replies, “Because I never claimed that my universe was truly 1 second old. Because my universe is 100 seconds old based on two-way light speed, I can convert back and forth from any convention over the one-way travel of light over “x” an infinite number of times and get infinite values for that one-way speed – all the while, claiming only one universe .”

And that is how we re-orient ourselves when dealing with synchrony conventions and struggle back to reality.

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Here is the simple summary. When Lisle constructed his ASC paradigm he took liberties never allowed by the conventionality thesis. A paraphrase of the thesis says,

Given the empirically validated, always constant, two-way speed of light, one is free to choose their one-way speed so long as the averaged round-trip speed always returns a value of c.

Since the one-way speed was a free parameter, Lisle saw what he thought was a chance for a young universe. He mistakenly believed the thesis granted him the liberty to construct a universe based solely on the one-way speed of light. Because he ignored the two-way speed of light requirement of the thesis, he also ended up violating the thesis in his construct.

When asked to convert his young universe to an Einstein synchrony, he could not.

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Let me try again. Earlier you said this:

But this is not correct. Values of ε are from 0 to 1 (ASC) and Einstein selected ε = 1/2 (ESC). If ε = 0 then light travels toward the observer at c/2 which would make the universe twice as old.

By your own logic, ESC doesn’t extend far enough into the past so ESC is falsified. In fact, you’ve gone one better and the Conventionality Thesis is falsified too. There’s only one valid convention and that’s ε = 0. Can this be right?

Of course not. So which convention is correct? They all are! As I tried to point out, you assume that ESC is giving you the correct answer (13.8 billion years) and then complain that other conventions measure spacetime differently.

@r_speir included a reference in which Lisle’s presents his model. The fundamental claim is that ASC is the language of the Bible and Lisle constructs his model from there, including falsifiable predictions. But r_speir doesn’t address those and instead seems to be trying to argue against a convention rather than attempting to refute the model itself.

From the paper referenced by r_speir, Lisle actually uses distant galaxies as support for his model:

“Indeed spiral galaxies nearby strongly resemble those found in the Hubble Deep Field—at the edge of our current knowledge of the universe. The spiral structure is clearly seen in both nearby and distant galaxies, suggesting that they are all roughly the same age as we see them now. This again confirms the ASC model. Even the amount of spiral wrapping seems to be about the same for nearby and very distant galaxies as we see them now—exactly as the ASC model predicts.”

This seems to contradict your claim.

It should be noted that ASC (the convention) allows for, but does not require a young universe. Nevertheless, if there is strong evidence (rather than a tacit assumption) that galaxies are more primitive at increasing distances, then it’s certainly a valid objection to Lisle’s model.

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There is the issue of the age of stars themselves. Stars that formed soon after the Big Bang were composed of hydrogen and helium, because that was all that was on the menu :slight_smile:. Younger stars in addition contain various heavier elements.

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Let me address your answer to @swamidass’s questions:

This paragraph by Lisle (that by the way, has no reference at all, so we just have Lisle’s words for it) falsely stated that distant galaxies seem to be “about the same” with nearby galaxies.

This is ridiculous, given that a large portion of astronomy is on the study of the evolution of galaxies through cosmic time.

Just a few examples out of literally tens of thousands of papers studying the miriad differences of nearby and distant galaxies:

  1. The morphology of nearby galaxies are on average different from faraway galaxies ([astro-ph/0109358] The Morphological Evolution of Galaxies)
  2. The velocity dispersion of nearby galaxies are on average different from faraway galaxies ([1107.0972] Redshift Evolution of the Galaxy Velocity Dispersion Function)
  3. The star formation rate of nearby galaxies are on average different from faraway galaxies ([1207.6105] The Average Star Formation Histories of Galaxies in Dark Matter Halos from z=0-8)

The fact that faraway galaxies are on average different from nearby galaxies is such a basic astronomical concept that I am confused how a self-proclaimed astronomer such as Jason Lisle can say otherwise.

Seriously, this stuff is in freshman textbooks!

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Hmm. You really love this model. I wonder who you really are? Would it help if I told you I already knew everything you stated above? Well, I did. I only use ESC and ASC as “extremes” for point of argument. They are all that is necessary to reference in order to overthrow Lisle.

But shall we put this to bed now so we don’t have to drag out this argument?

Can you please give me the ESC conversion to Lisle’s ASC universe?

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I think we can conclude that the protestor is not going to give the ESC conversion of Lisle’s ASC universe. For those curious, it can be found here under the subheading An alternate perspective and begins with the line, “So, we present the following picture of Creation…converted from observed time to calculated time”:

It is a clear indictment of the ASC paradigm in that it invokes a completely new and very different universe than Lisle’s beginning universe. In this thread I have formally submitted the accusation that if one cannot start in Lisle’s ASC universe and remain in Lisle’s ASC universe when converting to Einstein synchrony, then Lisle’s entire ASC construct is a false paradigm.

A closing statement to this thread should tie things off. Here is protestor ABC again:

Isn’t it odd that, just above (and in my opening paper as well), I demonstrated that Lisle had no choice but to invoke a new and different universe when he did his conversion, yet ABC claims it is that very thing that one does not have to do in the ASC paradigm? How do I even begin a response to such a clear statement of willful denial?

In closing, and in contrast to ABC’s remarkably obtuse comment, I present this true and verifiable statement:

Both the ASC and ESC are perfectly valid conventions and one can easily convert between them without invoking multiple universes only in an ancient universe exactly like the one in which we reside

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According to Lisle, here, differences in galaxies that are near vs far away is evidence that falsifies his models. Thank you for producing this quote.

@ABC, as @PdotdQ has already explained, we have produced immense amounts of evidence against lisle’s models just like this. He is just mistaken and incorrect in having overlooked all this evidence. Much of it was available when he wrote his theory, but quite a bit more has been collected since then with, for example, the Hubble Telescope.

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Thank you. Agreed.

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I think it’s fair to say, given that we are now discussing Lisle’s model, that he rejects conventional wisdom on cosmic evolution. So how solid is it?

https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/~ejchaisson/cosmic_evolution/docs/text/text_gal_7.html

“With such a zoo of galaxy-like objects littering the Universe, we naturally wonder if any overall pattern or evolutionary scheme interrelates the many varied types of galaxies. The answer is none discerned presently. As best we know, no identifiable physical mechanisms underlie all the galaxies and no clear developmental bonds relate one type of galaxy to another.”

Your own references also note some difficulties:

“The co-moving space density of luminous disk galaxies has not changed significantly since z = 1, indicating that while the general appearance of these objects has continuously changed with cosmic epoch, their overall numbers have been conserved. Attempts to explain these results with hierarchical models for the formation of galaxies have met with mixed success.”

“The VDF appears to show less evolution than the stellar mass function, particularly at the lowest number densities. We note that these results are still somewhat uncertain and we suggest several avenues for further calibrating the inferred velocity dispersions.”

If there’s no discernable evolutionary progress, if models are having mixed success and results are somewhat uncertain then it doesn’t convincingly refute Lisle’s claim. So let’s consider the extremes because this must be where the differences are the greatest:

And that’s certainly the suggestion in this image. But interestingly, the final frame seems to coincide with the limits of our current technology. Identifying objects at such distance is difficult because of light interference from other galaxies in the field of view. This means we have a small sample size which obviously doesn’t help. Nevertheless, there are predictions about what me might expect to see here. Another poster provided a reference which mentioned Population III stars, and if these are detected they could lend some confidence. But they are notable only by their absence.

So whilst there may be a pattern, without a model of cosmic evolution it appears to be more open to interpretation. Lisle could still be completely wrong, but maybe it’s not as clear-cut as you suggest.

I can assure you that I have no affiliation with Lisle, or indeed his model. I tend to agree with Lisle’s claim that ASC is the language of the Bible and I think his model is interesting, but if it’s falsified I’ll certainly not lose any sleep over it!

To convert the coordinates of an event in spacetime from ESC to ASC, the spatial coordinates (x, y and z) remain the same. In the below t is ASC time, T is ESC time, c is the speed of light and r is the square root of the sum of the squares of the spatial coordinates:

t = T - r/c

(Sorry, I’m not sure how to employ the math extension.)

You still seem to be hung-up on fitting an old universe into ASC. And that’s fine, ASC allows for old universe but it doesn’t require it. ASC is position based so all observers on earth see distant events at the same time (to within a fraction of a second at least). But observers elsewhere in the universe would not agree.

ESC on the other hand is velocity based. As the earth orbits the sun the direction of it’s velocity changes, so the ages of distant objects will change too. And nobody is invoking new universes as a consequence. Regardless of which convention is used, we simply can’t think in terms of absolute time. The whole point of Einstein’s work was to show that it’s all relative.

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What this means is that we do not know of the way the cosmos forms ALL galaxies, or whether there is only one way to do so (“an overall pattern or evolutionary scheme”). For all we know, different galaxies can form in different ways. This does not mean that we do not observationally see differences on average between faraway and closeby galaxies.

As stated in that quote, the observation is clear: “the general appearance of these objects has continuously changed with cosmic epoch”

The last sentence: "Attempts to explain these results with hierarchical models for the formation of galaxies have met with mixed success.” Is the statement that we currently do not have a theoretical model that can fully reproduce the observations. Note that this paper is older and we are progressively getting better at doing just that.

It does not matter if we do not yet have a full theory of why faraway galaxies and and closeby galaxies differ, the observation shows that they do. Jason Lisle’s model is not compatible with this observation.

Even if you don’t believe that the VDF changes, the stellar mass function does - as the first sentence states. Note that the statement “We note that these results are still somewhat uncertain and we suggest several avenues for further calibrating the inferred velocity dispersions.” refers only to evolution of to the VDF, not evolution of the stellar mass function, which is on a work separate from this one.

What about the third paper I linked? [1207.6105] The Average Star Formation Histories of Galaxies in Dark Matter Halos from z=0-8

The sample size is small exactly because you chose the most extreme distances. The changes in galaxy properties are apparent even in low redshifts (as the papers I linked demonstrated). For these relatively closeby galaxies, we have a lot of samples.

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