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Index to Creationist Claims,  edited by Mark Isaak,    Copyright © 2004
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Claim CH311:

In the pre-Flood earth, the vapor canopy, a translucent layer of water vapor above the atmosphere, filtered out radiation from space, decreasing mutations and drastically increasing life spans.

Source:

Vail, Isaac Newton, 1912. The Earth's Annular System, 4th ed. Pasadena: The Annular World Co.
Morris, Henry M., 1974. Scientific Creationism, Green Forest, AR: Master Books, pp. 210-211.

Response:

  1. The vapor canopy as proposed would make the environment on earth highly inimical at best.

  2. Filtering out radiation from space has no appreciable effect on life spans. Life spans are determined mostly by programmed cell death, not by mutations. Mutations themselves are mostly caused by factors other than radiation. People who live at high altitudes, and thus who have significantly less atmospheric shielding from cosmic radiation, do not live noticeably shorter lives as a result.

Links:

Morton, Glenn R., 2000. The demise and fall of the water vapor canopy: A fallen creationist idea. http://home.entouch.net/dmd/canopy.htm
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created 2003-6-29