I see that you seem to be referring to some posts by the Institute of Creation Research (ICR) and other creationists. I am aware of the creationist proposal that the sun and stars are powered by gravitational collapse instead of nuclear fusion. Gravitational collapse gives the sun some of its energy, but it seems to only have enough energy to power the sun for about 20 million years. This is easy to calculate and has been done in the 1800's. But the sun is older than 20 million years. With nuclear fusion, we get e=mc^2 energy where c is the speed of light (though only a portion of the mass is converted into energy). With gravitational collapse, we get approximately (up to a small constant factor) (1/2)m v^2 energy where v is approximately the escape velocity of the surface of the sun which is about 617000 meters per second. c is about 300,000,000 meters per second. So fusion wins. Fusion gives you more energy.

Regards,

-Joseph Van Name Ph.D.

P.S. I used to be a lot more accepting of creationists, but that was a much different era back then before January 2020 and December 2024 came along. We are living in a very dangerous era where biological laboratories will be able to make some truly f#@#ed up pathogens such as mirror bacteria. Mirror bacteria will be able to reproduce and evolve at a much higher rate than humans, so we need to learn how to deal with evolving mirror bacteria so we don't go extinct. And a good way to start this is to understand the theory of biological evolution. Of course, the ICR does not just question evolution; they question all parts of science that require a long timeline. But if you really want to have fun, you can try to find some bullshit in the Technical Report on Mirror Bacteria. I certainly did. https://purl.stanford.edu/cv716pj4036

I see that you seem to be referring to some posts by the Institute of Creation Research. I am aware of the creationist proposal that the sun and stars are powered by gravitational collapse instead of nuclear fusion. Gravitational collapse gives the sun some of its energy, but it seems to only have enough energy to power the sun for about 20 million years. This is easy to calculate and has been done in the 1800's. But the sun is older than 20 million years. With nuclear fusion, we get e=mc^2 energy where c is the speed of light (though only a portion of the mass is converted into energy). With gravitational collapse, we get approximately (up to a small constant factor) (1/2)m v^2 energy where v is approximately the escape velocity of the surface of the sun which is about 617000 meters per second. c is about 300,000,000 meters per second. So fusion wins. Fusion gives you more energy.

Regards,

-Joseph Van Name Ph.D.