I'm constantly amazed how much evidence I see on a daily basis that can't possibly be explained by creationists. It boggles the mind that they can ignore so many in-your-face facts and cling to their 3000-year-old mythology.
The latest example is the amazing images of the "black hole" in the clouds of Jupiter caused by a comet strike last week.
Anthony Wesley, an amateur astronomer in Austrailia, discovered the scar near Jupiter's south pole last week and sounded the alarm to the astronomy community. The Hubble Space Telescope was quickly aimed at Jupiter, capturing some great images (in the video above).
Try as I might, I can't figure out how a creationist would explain comets, asteroids, meteorites and other planetary debris and space junk. Why would an omnipotent god create a solar system with junk flying around that could destroy his creation? Why would such a god leave junk flying around at all? In fact, if this purported creator's goal was to create humankind for his own enjoyment, or to worship him, or whatever reason purportedly motivated him, why would he even create planets?
What's more, all you have to do is look at the orbits of some of these comets, and a bit of algebra tells us that their orbits are sometimes much longer than 6.000 years. In other words, they've been circling (elipting?) the sun for much longer than the creationists claim is the age of the universe! The only possible explanation is that this mythical creator deliberately created all of the hundreds of thousands of comets, millions of asteroids, and billions of chunks of rocks that we call meteors, not to mention eight extra planets that serve no purpose at all, for no apparent reason, and he created them with orbits that were, for some inscrutable reason, meant to fool us.
He also put all of those photons in the sky streaming towards us from other stars, so that even though these stars are millions and billions of light years away, their light is already reaching us.
This is a mighty strange god, isn't it? Quite the trickster. Or maybe he's just a figment of our collective imaginations, one that some of us have outgrown but others still cling to.
Showing posts with label comet. Show all posts
Showing posts with label comet. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
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Friday, January 2, 2009
How Science REALLY Works: The "Clovis Comet"
I get sick of religious people – mostly Christian fundamentalist and evangelicals – who simply don't understand science, and use specious and vacuous reasoning to "prove" that science is wrong, doesn't have all the answers, or (my biggest annoyance) that there is disagreement among scientists about issues that are well understood. But here is an example, one that illustrates science at its best, when scientists are offering opinions, hypotheses, and data, working together to converge on an objective truth.
The case in point is illustrated by this article about the Clovis Comet, which (according to proponents of this theory) killed the Native Americans called the Clovis People about 12,900 years ago.
But there is disagreement. Other scientists have proposed other reasons for the Clovis People's disappearance: Overhunting that led to a collapse of the megafauna, a sudden climate change, disease, war, and various combinations of these and other factors.
In other words, we don't know the answer yet ... there are still many competing theories about why the Clovis People disappeared. Superficially, it might even seem like the Clovis scientists are no better than religious people arguing about interpretations of the Bible: Many opinions, sometimes strongly held, heated arguments, often personal, factions that form and break apart ... scientists really are just humans, after all.
But this apparent similarity between science and religion is superficial. Somewhere, under all the facts, data, and speculation, there is a single truth, what actually happened to the Clovis People, and scientists have a methodology to get at that truth. They propose answers, they argue a lot, and then the search for more data, expand our knowledge, reject theories that don't pass muster, argue some more, dig some more ... and sooner or later, they usually converge on the objective truth. And when that happens, the data, the real facts, are all there for everyone to examine, and confirm for themselves.
The cool thing about Clovis-Comet theory is not that it's right or wrong. If it's right, it will solve a mystery that's baffled anthropologists for a long time, and yes, that would be cool. If it's wrong, it will be just another failed hypothesis in the long history of science.
This never happens in religion. You can propose a new interpretation of the Bible, and who is to say you're wrong? You can claim that it's really Thor, not Yahweh, up there in the sky, and who can say you're wrong? Neither you nor the Pope himself can present one shred of evidence. The argument will never converge. There is no objective truth for religion, no foundation. When religous people argue, they're arguing about opinion, and they can argue forever.
But when scientists argue, it's over facts, and sooner or later, the facts prevail. One theory will win out because it is true, and the others will be forgotten. And the scientists will then move on to the next question, to expand our knowledge even more.
The case in point is illustrated by this article about the Clovis Comet, which (according to proponents of this theory) killed the Native Americans called the Clovis People about 12,900 years ago.
But there is disagreement. Other scientists have proposed other reasons for the Clovis People's disappearance: Overhunting that led to a collapse of the megafauna, a sudden climate change, disease, war, and various combinations of these and other factors.
In other words, we don't know the answer yet ... there are still many competing theories about why the Clovis People disappeared. Superficially, it might even seem like the Clovis scientists are no better than religious people arguing about interpretations of the Bible: Many opinions, sometimes strongly held, heated arguments, often personal, factions that form and break apart ... scientists really are just humans, after all.
But this apparent similarity between science and religion is superficial. Somewhere, under all the facts, data, and speculation, there is a single truth, what actually happened to the Clovis People, and scientists have a methodology to get at that truth. They propose answers, they argue a lot, and then the search for more data, expand our knowledge, reject theories that don't pass muster, argue some more, dig some more ... and sooner or later, they usually converge on the objective truth. And when that happens, the data, the real facts, are all there for everyone to examine, and confirm for themselves.
The cool thing about Clovis-Comet theory is not that it's right or wrong. If it's right, it will solve a mystery that's baffled anthropologists for a long time, and yes, that would be cool. If it's wrong, it will be just another failed hypothesis in the long history of science.
This never happens in religion. You can propose a new interpretation of the Bible, and who is to say you're wrong? You can claim that it's really Thor, not Yahweh, up there in the sky, and who can say you're wrong? Neither you nor the Pope himself can present one shred of evidence. The argument will never converge. There is no objective truth for religion, no foundation. When religous people argue, they're arguing about opinion, and they can argue forever.
But when scientists argue, it's over facts, and sooner or later, the facts prevail. One theory will win out because it is true, and the others will be forgotten. And the scientists will then move on to the next question, to expand our knowledge even more.
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