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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Scientific Dating Methods and Counter Claims
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Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
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Posted
That idea about the Babel builders reminded me that I heard a piece yesterday (about the translation of the Bible into Jamaican patois, actually) in which it was explained that that patois developed as a result of plantation owners deliberately having workers from different language groups to avoid them collaborating in overthrowing their masters. The workers would communicate anyway, in their mixed speech.
I bet those workers would have done the same, given the chance. Had the story been true.
[ 07. October 2012, 20:38: Message edited by: Penny S ]
Posts: 5833 | Registered: May 2009
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
/tangent
There is a similar story as to the origin of Cajón drum.
Suppression be damned. ![[Biased]](wink.gif)
/tangent
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Jamat
Shipmate
# 11621
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Posted
quote:
Your creationism doesn't sit comfortably with the facts. All the world's geology, with all its records of life, does not look as if it is best explained by a single world-wide flood, responsible for both catastrophic landscape restructuring, and gentle accumulation of sediment at the same time. That's not the explanation that would leap out at any relatively impartial observer. An old earth is a better fit, regardless of one's preconceptions.
Well, as a general comment I think that the flood was way more than just a flood. And of course it is not the only cataclysmic event the Bible refers to. There is the enigmatic one liner after the birth of Peleg "The earth was divided in his days." While no other details are there to help, it seems obvious that such an event within a single lifetime would have been dramatic and far reaching.
Now I know I am no scientist or Geologist or Biologist or Physicist. I do not willingly lock horns with such either. However, to do creationists some justice their comments on what water can do are quite plausible. Water can uproot, sort and lay down.And it can do so quickly. Combine the flood with the orogeny that occurred in subsequent generations and I do not find the Bible's snapshot of history incredible.
Incidentally, Jewish geneologies are commonly full of gaps. The generational lines preserved may be incomplete and therefore chonologies determined from them, particularly after the flood, are not reliable. If for instance, you did have Abraham coexisting with Shem that would be surprising. It is more likely IMV that the generational lines contain only what is needed to determine ancestry. To a Hebrew, your grandsons were also your sons as were your great grandsons.
The article by Glenn Morton is interesting. I wonder of he is a lone voice in his recantation of creationism. The problem for yecs is that there may not be enough time for what we see, but the problem for evolutionists is that no amount of time is really enough for what is claimed. The opening chapter of Behe's "Darwin's Black Box" seems to lay out the problem. never mind ID, his opening gambit is another issue, it is that the Darwinian model fails to account for biological complexity.
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Jamat ..in utmost longditude, where Heaven
with Earth and ocean meets, the setting sun slowly descended, and with right aspect
Against the eastern gate of Paradise. (Milton Paradise Lost Bk iv)
Posts: 3228 | From: New Zealand | Registered: Jul 2006
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
Well, as a general comment I think that the flood was way more than just a flood.
Wait, if the Flood wasn't really a flood how does that not count as God lying? Isn't that more or less your whole premise? That if God (through the Bible) said there was a flood then it had to be a flood and not something else?
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
And of course it is not the only cataclysmic event the Bible refers to. There is the enigmatic one liner after the birth of Peleg "The earth was divided in his days." While no other details are there to help, it seems obvious that such an event within a single lifetime would have been dramatic and far reaching.
Indeed. Such a division of the earth also happened in the time of Churchill. And Winston said unto the Westminsterites of the land of Fulton, where there was great Missouri:
quote:
From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an iron curtain has descended across the Continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe. Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia; all these famous cities and the populations around them lie in what I must call the Soviet sphere, and all are subject, in one form or another, not only to Soviet influence but to a very high and in some cases increasing measure of control from Moscow.
Although the Cold War was indeed "dramatic and far reaching" it didn't have a tremendous impact on the world's underlying geology.
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
Now I know I am no scientist or Geologist or Biologist or Physicist. I do not willingly lock horns with such either. However, to do creationists some justice their comments on what water can do are quite plausible. Water can uproot, sort and lay down. And it can do so quickly.
Given your self-admitted total ignorance of any relevant field, what criteria are you using to judge plausibility? As near as I can tell the only system you use to judge the plausibility of a proposition is "does this give me the pre-determined answer I want?" Which historical floods would you characterize as neatly sorting its debris by class, family, and species?
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
Incidentally, Jewish geneologies are commonly full of gaps. The generational lines preserved may be incomplete and therefore chonologies determined from them, particularly after the flood, are not reliable.
This goes back to my earlier question of why you'll accept the premise of these particular inaccuracies in the Biblical account but not others? Also, just to clear this up in advance, do you actually have any expertise in Jewish geneology or is this another case where any contrary evidence presented will be incuriously shrugged off with lame protestations of "I'm not an expert"?
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
If for instance, you did have Abraham coexisting with Shem that would be surprising. It is more likely IMV that the generational lines contain only what is needed to determine ancestry. To a Hebrew, your grandsons were also your sons as were your great grandsons.
Which simply pretends away a problem and hopes no one else notices. For instance, if Genesis says "When Eber had lived 34 years, he became the father of Peleg, it doesn't really matter whether there are missing generations or not. Thirty-four years is thirty-four year whether Peleg was really Eber's son, grandson, great-grandson, or whatever.
As for the problem of Abraham coexisting with Shem, I'd say it's more due to Shem's supposed six century lifespan than with missing generations. Interestingly at the time Abraham was born all of his male-line ancestors going back to Noah (ten generations) were still alive, if the lifespans attributed to them by Genesis are to be believed.
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
The article by Glenn Morton is interesting. I wonder of he is a lone voice in his recantation of creationism. The problem for yecs is that there may not be enough time for what we see, but the problem for evolutionists is that no amount of time is really enough for what is claimed. The opening chapter of Behe's "Darwin's Black Box" seems to lay out the problem. never mind ID, his opening gambit is another issue, it is that the Darwinian model fails to account for biological complexity.
A witness stand is a lonely place to lie, as Behe illustrated here by admitting under oath that "the Darwinian model" (as you call it) can actually do what he says in his book it can't do. Go on and read it. It's simple enough for a judge (who is, like you, "no scientist or Geologist or Biologist or Physicist") to grasp the basics.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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Louise
Shipmate
# 30
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Posted
Hosting
This thread seems to have strayed far away from examining dating methods.
If people wish to have a grab-bag of YEC arguments (pro&anti), then the correct thread is the 'Death of Darwinism'. It is also the thread for discussing Behe where he has been previously discussed at length. Please move any discussion of him to there.
thanks!
Louise
Dead Horses host
hosting off
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Now you need never click a Daily Mail link again! Kittenblock replaces Mail links with calming pics of tea and kittens! http://www.teaandkittens.co.uk/ Click under 'other stuff' to find it.
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Jamat
Shipmate
# 11621
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Posted
quote:
A witness stand is a lonely place to lie, as Behe illustrated here by admitting under oath that "the Darwinian model" (as you call it) can actually do what he says in his book it can't do. Go on and read it. It's simple enough for a judge (who is, like you, "no scientist or Geologist or Biologist or Physicist") to grasp the basics.
Interesting that the whole discussion centres around microevolution that no creationist disputes anyway. 'Can actually do' in gene mutation is a slight stretch to 'did actually do'in a macro sense in history.
Louise, That is all I will post here.
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Jamat ..in utmost longditude, where Heaven
with Earth and ocean meets, the setting sun slowly descended, and with right aspect
Against the eastern gate of Paradise. (Milton Paradise Lost Bk iv)
Posts: 3228 | From: New Zealand | Registered: Jul 2006
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Palimpsest
Shipmate
# 16772
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Posted
I've never understood how the modern young earth proponents can explain away the artic and antartic ice cores
Posts: 2990 | From: Seattle WA. US | Registered: Nov 2011
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Eliab
Shipmate
# 9153
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
Now I know I am no scientist or Geologist or Biologist or Physicist. I do not willingly lock horns with such either.
But your position, and this thread, is entirely about disputing the claims of these disciplines.
There are, of course, unanswered questions in biology, geology and physics, but on one point there is overwhelming consensus. The earth is old. Every single relevant branch of science says so, and has compelling evidence to support that view. The fossil record points to an old earth. So does geology. The various radioactive clocks concur with that, and so do the genetic clocks of biology - and the geographic distribution of species offers powerful corroboration. Astronomy says the same thing. There is no scientific support to be found in any discipline for the view that the world is less than 10,000 years old.
Now you could say that theology trumps science, and despite appearances you believe that the Bible teaches infallibly that the earth is young. It might look old, but in fact it is not. You could say that God must, for reasons best known to himself, have created it with an appearance of age, a back-story. You have, though, declined to take that line.
Your argument is that the earth doesn't actually look old at all, that the evidence actually shows a young earth. That brings you into direct and inescapable conflict with every scientific discipline that has anything at all to say on the matter. If you want to present any sort of case against it, you need some evidence to say why just about every scientist on the planet has got the age of the earth so badly wrong.
And by "so badly wrong" I mean an error so vast that it is almost impossible to comprehend the scale of it. Out by a factor of somewhere between 500,000 and 1,000,000. An error on the scale of estimating the population of Great Britain at less than 100. Or guessing the weight of a fully laden 747 as a little under that of a bag of sugar. Or thinking that the Norman Conquest took place yesterday afternoon. That's the magnitude of the error you need to explain away. You need something better than "I'm not a scientist but..."
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"Perhaps there is poetic beauty in the abstract ideas of justice or fairness, but I doubt if many lawyers are moved by it"
Richard Dawkins
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Barnabas62
Host
# 9110
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Posted
The argument that the earth only appears old is one I heard again last year - from someone of "apparently" high intelligence. So I dug out what I always thought was the definitive argument with YEC-ers.
"It says in scripture that God spoke (creation) and it was so. God cannot speak falsehood when speaking creation - or anything else. You cannot say 'this book is right, this rock is wrong'. God speaks both. The argument that the universe as it is is capable of deceiving an honest observer seems to say very nasty things about God."
"But suppose the devil did it, following the Fall?" he asked.
"You can argue that he is a deceiver; there's a lot of scriptural backing for that" I replied. "You can even argue that he is capable of causing a kind of blindness in human beings - so that they see what he wants them to see. But what he cannot do is create; he only has the power to destroy. God is the creator of all that is, seen and unseen. That's what Christians believe. To believe otherwise is an aspect of an ancient heresy. A belief that matter is itself evil is an aspect of Manichaeism". (Pointing to unconscious heresies always makes YEC fundamentalists most uncomfortable).
"So what I'm left with is that my capacity for self-deception is so great that I cannot always trust the evidence of my own eyes?" he said.
"Actually, it's rather worse than that. It's not just your eyes. It's the eyes of loads of observers. And it's scripture too. The heavens declare the glory of God. His eternal power and glory have from the beginning been clearly seen in 'the things that are made'. That is. creation itself. Scripture does not declare that the created order is deceptive. Even after the Fall. It declares the reverse of that, in both OT and NT"
"Hmm" he said. "Total depravity is even worse than I thought it was".
At which point, I threw in the sponge!
[ 09. October 2012, 10:24: Message edited by: Barnabas62 ]
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
The problem for yecs is that there may not be enough time for what we see, but the problem for evolutionists is that no amount of time is really enough for what is claimed.
Well, that is a question about dates. And there clearly is "enough time for what is claimed". Those who say there isn't seem to be either confused or just possibly lying.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
There is no scientific support to be found in any discipline for the view that the world is less than 10,000 years old.
Add a few extra zeroes in there. There is no scientific support to be found in any discipline for the view that the world is less than 1,000,000,000 years old.
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
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Posted
quote:
Combine the flood with the orogeny that occurred in subsequent generations and I do not find the Bible's snapshot of history incredible.
Which orogeny would that be? Do you actually know what an orogeny is?
Three major ones still active are the Himalaya, Rockies/Andes and the Alps. Do you think that any of those could have popped up, and eroded as they have, in the last 6000 years?
There are, however, older ones. The Appalachian, the Caledonian, the mountains up the spine of Norway and Sweden (these three appear to connect up if the Atlantic is closed.)
And there are what clearly appear to be the roots of older mountain building areas eroded away across Europe. Only deep inside mountains would rocks of various origins be transformed into metamorphic rocks by heat and pressure - the conditions can be worked out in laboratories.
Not do-able in 6000 years, I would imagine. And certainly not without anyone noticing.
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pjkirk
Shipmate
# 10997
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Posted
For those interested and who haven't seen it yet (ahem, Jamat), we now have verification of carbon levels up to 52,000 years ago with known-date specimens.
http://www.nature.com/news/core-sample-sends-carbon-clock-farther-back-in-time-1.11622
quote:
Bronk Ramsey’s team aimed to fill this gap by using sediment from bed of Lake Suigetsu, west of Tokyo. Two distinct sediment layers have formed in the lake every summer and winter over tens of thousands of years. The researchers collected roughly 70-metre core samples from the lake and painstakingly counted the layers to come up with a direct record stretching back 52,000 years. Preserved leaves in the cores — “they look fresh as if they’ve fallen very recently”, Bronk Ramsey says — yielded 651 carbon dates that could be compared to the calendar dates of the sediment they were found in.
This probably won't meaningfully alter any dates that we already have, but it will help fine-tune them. It also handily invalidates the ideas that the speed of half-lives has been changing over a substantial chunk of time.
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Dear God, I would like to file a bug report -- Randall Munroe (http://xkcd.com/258/)
Posts: 1177 | From: Swinging on a hammock, chatting with Bokonon | Registered: Feb 2006
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Rex Monday
None but a blockhead
# 2569
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Posted
One of the pertinent aspects of that Nature paper (which is non-technical and well worth reading) is how it demonstrates the use of multiple independent techniques to build up a consistent picture, with cross-checks and attempts to characterise and understand what limits there may be to each.
It's one of the primary characteristics of science that it is of a whole. Carbon dating here is linked to archaeological evidence, tree rings, corals and the organic components of lake varves. If the basic premise behind it is wrong, it is very hard to explain how the data from such different systems correspond so closely.
Radiometric dating is by now a large, complex and very well-attested field - and still capable of improvement through innovative and careful science, as with the Nature paper. It could still be wrong, of course; there could be a deeper explanation that makes it all misguided. But the probability is tiny, when new science fits in so well with what's already known, nor can any realistic experiments that could break it be readily conceived.
On the other hand, YEC attempts at science are almost never linked or made to fit a consistent picture. It's like early Star Trek, where each week the crew of the Enterprise make some grand new discovery - which is never mentioned again or used in subsequent episodes. The Flood is either extraordinarily energetic and chaotic - carving the Grand Canyon in hours - or so gentle and placid that every fossil on earth has been carefully laid down in exactly the right order. One argument is used to explain away one observation, another a different one, but the fact that they can't possibly describe the same event is never dealt with - or, often, admitted.
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I am largely against organised religion, which is why I am so fond of the C of E.
Posts: 514 | From: Gin Lane | Registered: Mar 2002
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Rex Monday
None but a blockhead
# 2569
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Posted
Sorry for posting again so soon, but I just came across a rather fascinating figure, J. Laurence Kulp, who was one of the founding fathers of modern C14 radiometric dating.
He was also a member of the Plymouth Brethren, and became severely discomforted in the late 1940s by the role of creationist thinking -- and in particular, Flood geology -- in fundamentalist Christian theology. Thus, he became active in fighting the cause of science within fundamentalism and evangelicalism.
I've only read the Wikipedia entry for him, but I'm following up the citations and other references. Sounds a fascinating chap; it's just sad that, more than sixty years on, people like him are so badly needed.
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I am largely against organised religion, which is why I am so fond of the C of E.
Posts: 514 | From: Gin Lane | Registered: Mar 2002
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Jamat
Shipmate
# 11621
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
The problem for yecs is that there may not be enough time for what we see, but the problem for evolutionists is that no amount of time is really enough for what is claimed.
Well, that is a question about dates. And there clearly is "enough time for what is claimed". Those who say there isn't seem to be either confused or just possibly lying.
Ken, Your posts are always wise, erudite, well considered and reasonable. I will deeply miss you along with so many other folk who post here.
Go Well.
MattC
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Jamat ..in utmost longditude, where Heaven
with Earth and ocean meets, the setting sun slowly descended, and with right aspect
Against the eastern gate of Paradise. (Milton Paradise Lost Bk iv)
Posts: 3228 | From: New Zealand | Registered: Jul 2006
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itsarumdo
Shipmate
# 18174
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Posted
I can see why his is in dead horses. That's a lot of posts. I stopped at the first page, and somehow y'all kept on going for another 10 pages ![[Overused]](graemlins/notworthy.gif) ![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif) ![[brick wall]](graemlins/brick_wall.gif) ![[Killing me]](graemlins/killingme.gif)
[ 21. September 2014, 10:03: Message edited by: itsarumdo ]
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"Iti sapis potanda tinone" Lycophron
Posts: 994 | From: Planet Zog | Registered: Jul 2014
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
You made it 10.
We are living proof that reason does not, cannot work. The only way to change people who insist on believing the wrong things is to be nice to them regardless.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Jamat
Shipmate
# 11621
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
You made it 10.
We are living proof that reason does not, cannot work. The only way to change people who insist on believing the wrong things is to be nice to them regardless.
Ah, but what is love?
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Jamat ..in utmost longditude, where Heaven
with Earth and ocean meets, the setting sun slowly descended, and with right aspect
Against the eastern gate of Paradise. (Milton Paradise Lost Bk iv)
Posts: 3228 | From: New Zealand | Registered: Jul 2006
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
You made it 10.
We are living proof that reason does not, cannot work. The only way to change people who insist on believing the wrong things is to be nice to them regardless.
Ah, but what is love?
...anyway? Does anybody love anybody anyway?
[ 08. July 2015, 07:03: Message edited by: Karl: Liberal Backslider ]
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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Huia
Shipmate
# 3473
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Posted
quote:
Does anybody love anybody anyway?
![[Hot and Hormonal]](icon_redface.gif) Given that I clicked onto this thread with the idea that it was about scientific methods of choosing who to date that question seemed particularly apt.
Huia - off to bed because my mind seems weirdly confused
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Charity gives food from the table, Justice gives a place at the table.
Posts: 10382 | From: Te Wai Pounamu | Registered: Oct 2002
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Shpatari
Apprentice
# 18448
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Posted
I hope you've all been following the developments at New Horizons. Pluto (with Charon) is proving to be a real Death Star for the billions of years and their various patches and fudges.
There seems to be no end to the astonishment of the scientists on the team as they note how amazingly young feature after feature of the binary system looks.
And as we stare and stare at a Texas-sized ice sheets without a single crater, even the age estimate of 100 million years stretches credulity to the limit.
No tidal or radioactive heating available to speak of: the heat driving all this geology, including amazing orogeny, is Pluto's own from its inception. Clearly, the dwarf planet isn't even a tiny fraction of the assumed age of 4.6 billion years.
Actually though, the signs of the youth of the solar system have been writ increasingly large since at least March 1979 with the astounding revelation of hypervolcanic Io.
Here's to giving this thread a new lease of life ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
Welcome Shpatari.
As you are a newbie, please understand that the following is not personal, nor is it meant to be unwelcoming.
But I don't see what you think you see when perusing the information sent back by New Horizons.
Nothing yet contradicts the calculated age of Pluto. The surface, yes, but not the planet itself.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Shpatari
Apprentice
# 18448
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Posted
The 100 million years is the NH team's upper limit on the age of the Sputnik Planum. But as they also admit, for all they know it could have formed last week.
As for what's driving all the geology, they posit a substantial subsurface ocean. That would have to be an ocean of liquid water, under a surface whose temperature is barely 50K.
There is simply no way that such a small body could retain that much heat for such a long time as usually assumed.
Nobody expected any of this geological activity - they thought it would be an old, cold, highly cratered world looking rather like, say, Callisto.
And as I indicated, this is just the icing on the cake of a whole series of discoveries by the space probes of the past 40 years which all point to the same broad conclusion for a range of outer solar system objects: nowhere near billions of years old.
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
If the planetary model is a cake, the icing is the first thing we discover, not the last. And, as far as Pluto is concerned, we are just discerning the flavour of the icing, we still do not know its recipe. Nor what cake might lie beneath.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Shpatari:
As for what's driving all the geology, they posit a substantial subsurface ocean. That would have to be an ocean of liquid water, under a surface whose temperature is barely 50K.
Who mentioned liquid water? An ocean doesn't need to be water.
Pluto has certainly produced some surprises, but so too have most of the planets, asteroids, comets and other objects we've sent probes too. Certainly no one expected an active world with glaciers (of nitrogen, carbon monoxide and methane ices), an atmosphere (mostly methane and other simple organic gases produced by the breakdown of methane) and young surfaces. Everyone was expecting a rocky planet, not one with a substantial quantity of hydrocarbons, nitrogen and other frozen gases. The activity would need a heat source, and it's unclear what that would be at present. There could be a greater concentration of primordial radionuclides in the outer solar system, but New Horizons doesn't carry instruments to test that. Charon is big moon (relative to the size of Pluto) and that would create some tidal heating.
The data will refine our understanding of the details of the outer solar system. There's nothing that contradicts the big picture.
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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Barnabas62
Host
# 9110
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Posted
Alan, isn't there some kind of dynamic relationship between planetary cores, magnetic fields and stored potential (and released) energy levels?
I reread the Wiki article on planetary cores and (vaguely) remember reading something (New Scientist?) about the complexities involved in this. At any rate, planetary core science looks pretty complex to me!
Clearly there is something going on internally which is currently generating a lot of heat but I'm pretty sure one cannot assert that the process of internal generation gives a definite picture about the age of the planet.
[ 31. July 2015, 09:22: Message edited by: Barnabas62 ]
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
I'd be tempted at this point to say that the lack of surface craters is due to the sublimation and redeposition of ices. If there's any sort of weather on Pluto, then it will inevitably involve the boiling off of gases on the day side and refreezing them on the night side.
Also: how many craters did we expect there to be on a body of this size, this far out? Pluto will be part of the answer to that question, rather than an anomaly.
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Forward the New Republic
Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
Pluto clearly has an atmosphere, and hence weather. That must affect the persistence of visible craters on the surface.
I don't have time to look up the data, but New Horizons collected photos of Charon as well. Without an atmosphere and even less heat generating potential Charon should retain craters. That should be able to answer the question of whether impacts are more, or less, frequent in the outer solar system. And, hence, whether the relative lack of craters on Pluto is because there are less impacts or if they get erased by geological activity and weathering.
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
A first glance here shows some cratering, and a differentiation in the ages of some of the surfaces.
It isn't cratered to fuck (technical term), and from what I've read, I'd expect much heavier cratering in the inner solar system than the outer. Mercury is essentially overlapping craters.
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Forward the New Republic
Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
Pluto clearly has an atmosphere, and hence weather. That must affect the persistence of visible craters on the surface.
I don't have time to look up the data, but New Horizons collected photos of Charon as well. Without an atmosphere and even less heat generating potential Charon should retain craters. That should be able to answer the question of whether impacts are more, or less, frequent in the outer solar system. And, hence, whether the relative lack of craters on Pluto is because there are less impacts or if they get erased by geological activity and weathering.
There is some theorization that the spot on Charon's pole is the residue of some of Pluto's escaping atmosphere that was captured by the moon. Not enough gravity to retain its own atmosphere, but enough to retain anything that freezes/sublimates during escape.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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M.
Ship's Spare Part
# 3291
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Posted
Tangent - Croesos, I read your post before last as saying that ' a first glance here shows some catering...' which really did seem like a game changer!
M.
Posts: 2303 | From: Lurking in Surrey | Registered: Sep 2002
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by M.:
Tangent - Croesos, I read your post before last as saying that ' a first glance here shows some catering...' which really did seem like a game changer!
M.
That was actually Doc Tor. I know the resemblance can be confusing.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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M.
Ship's Spare Part
# 3291
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Posted
Ooops, sorry to both.
M.
Posts: 2303 | From: Lurking in Surrey | Registered: Sep 2002
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Jamat
Shipmate
# 11621
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Posted
quote:
Gopperrevs: If you were finally persuaded that a young earth is false, and that humans were created through some evolutionary process, and the house of cards did come down, and you rejected Christianity (which is what you have said would happen). Would you suddenly stop being a sinner?
The first chapters of Genesis don't tell us how all this came about. They tell us how it is. They crystalize our understanding of our condition.
I've heard before the "no historical fall, no need for a historical Jesus" line, and I think it's rubbish. Because, I don't believe in a historical fall, but I sure has hell still need Jesus.
An answer and 2 questions:
Yes. There would be no basis for a concept of sin.
Q1. How in your view does Genesis help us to understand our condition?
Q2. Why do you need Jesus given that his world view is anachronistic?
Posts: 3228 | From: New Zealand | Registered: Jul 2006
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
I'm not Gopperrevs but I'll give my answers.
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat
Q1. How in your view does Genesis help us to understand our condition?
It tells us we are sinners and sin separates us from God.
quote:
Q2. Why do you need Jesus given that his world view is anachronistic?
I don't need him for his world view, I need him for his death on the Cross.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
Wow, the length of time between replies exceeds the biblical time scale for the universe, no further proof needed.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Wow, the length of time between replies exceeds the biblical time scale for the universe, no further proof needed.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Gee D
Shipmate
# 13815
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Posted
Jamat, Archbisop Ussher, the man who worked out the 4004 BC creation date for the universe, was very precise in his calculations. Not just the year, but to Sunday 23 October with the necessary machinery being set in motion for the preliminaries at about 6pm the previous day. 2 questions:
1, That necessarily involves some work on the Sabbath, when He rested. Did He break one of his own rules?
2. As there was no time until the creation, how could there be such precision about the preliminaries?
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Not every Anglican in Sydney is Sydney Anglican
Posts: 7028 | From: Warrawee NSW Australia | Registered: Jun 2008
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
Own up. Who read the Necronomicon backwards?
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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Net Spinster
Shipmate
# 16058
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gee D:
Jamat, Archbisop Ussher, the man who worked out the 4004 BC creation date for the universe, was very precise in his calculations. Not just the year, but to Sunday 23 October with the necessary machinery being set in motion for the preliminaries at about 6pm the previous day. 2 questions:
1, That necessarily involves some work on the Sabbath, when He rested. Did He break one of his own rules?
2. As there was no time until the creation, how could there be such precision about the preliminaries?
The Sabbath is from our Friday sunset till Saturday sunset so as long as 6pm is after sunset on that day everything is fine. Ussher presumably saw God doing a 24 hour work day; no wonder he needed a rest after 6 days.
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spinner of webs
Posts: 1093 | From: San Francisco Bay area | Registered: Dec 2010
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Gee D
Shipmate
# 13815
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Posted
But no day or night until the first day, following thw creation of light.
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Not every Anglican in Sydney is Sydney Anglican
Posts: 7028 | From: Warrawee NSW Australia | Registered: Jun 2008
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
Clearly there is something going on internally which is currently generating a lot of heat but I'm pretty sure one cannot assert that the process of internal generation gives a definite picture about the age of the planet.
I had a whimsical thought, based on both the comment on Pluto's heat and the theory that Jupiter might be a failed star/brown dwarf.
If a star can become Jupiter, something we usually consider a planet, could a planet become a star?
Ok, that's weird. But I plugged the question into Ask.com, and found that other people had been wondering about it on various science sites. Most of the replies on those sites were wayyy over my head, but I skimmed several of the sites. (BTW, I didn't see anyone make fun of the questioner or the idea, which was pretty cool.)
It seems like most of the answers are basically "no, unless a series of complicated circumstances made the planet extremely hot".
So maybe Pluto doesn't have much chance of becoming a star, despite its increasing heat. But, given the furor over whether it's even a planet, wouldn't it be cool if it did become a star?
Kindly neither laugh at me nor throw things at me.
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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001
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Arethosemyfeet
Shipmate
# 17047
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Posted
Pluto can't become a star because it doesn't have close to enough mass - there is a minimum threshold for the fusion reaction to be self-sustaining - and likely doesn't have the right elemental composition even if it did.
Posts: 2933 | From: Hebrides | Registered: Apr 2012
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Adeodatus
Shipmate
# 4992
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Posted
When people talk about heat being generated in Pluto (or any other planet), they mean enough heat to raise the surface temperature by a few degrees. For a body to become a star its core temperature has to reach several million degrees. It also has to be made mostly of hydrogen, which Pluto isn't (though Jupiter is).
The mechanism goes something like this. You start off with a lose cloud of mostly-hydrogen. Random movements within the cloud means that "clumps" (still very diffuse clumps) begin to form. Gravity begins to have an effect, and the clumps of mostly-hydrogen start moving together. After a long time, you begin to get a more or less spherical cloud of mostly-hydrogen within the larger, more diffuse cloud. Gravity makes this spherical cloud begin to collapse in on itself. The effect of that is that the closer you get to the centre of the spherical cloud, the more the hydrogen is under pressure. Gas coming under pressure gets hot. At this point, broadly two things can happen. The cloud continues to collapse in on itself under gravity, gets warm or quite hot, and that's that. Alternatively, if the core gets very hot, the hydrogen ions at the centre start to undergo nuclear fusion, turning into helium and a few other subatomic bits and bobs. So there are now lots of little nuclear explosions providing and outward force that counteracts the inward force of gravity. If an equilibrium between these forces is reached, then the balance between inward gravity and outward nuclear explosions can be maintained for millions or billions of years, and you have a star.
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"What is broken, repair with gold."
Posts: 9779 | From: Manchester | Registered: Sep 2003
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
Arethosemyfeet and Adeodatus--
Many thanks! And Adeodatus, your explanation was especially clear. So "Pluto's heating up" means just a few degrees, and not the needed nuclear explosions. (There was mention of the latter on the sites I checked; but I was afraid I'd say it wrongly, so I didn't mention it.)
Thanks again.
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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001
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Louise
Shipmate
# 30
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Posted
bump
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Now you need never click a Daily Mail link again! Kittenblock replaces Mail links with calming pics of tea and kittens! http://www.teaandkittens.co.uk/ Click under 'other stuff' to find it.
Posts: 6918 | From: Scotland | Registered: May 2001
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