Are we pretty sure that the moon can still be stretched? Could it have enough of a molten core like the volcanic moon of Jupiter, or is it a cold rock? Has ti always been a cold rock? How much of the wobble is accounted for by the eliptical orbit? Could some of the wobble be due to uneven mass distribution and attraction by the sun? How much of the conjectures of the “experts” line up with what we know as empirical science? Will this comment/question appear in a discussion of related topics, or just be entered chronologically?
I think the problem is that your original thread is several days old and the default is to display only two days of threads and yours is older than that. If you look down at display options aat the bottom of any Forum display page, you’ll see a pull-down menu next to “From the”. Set that to last 10 days and you’re thread will appear, and you can post in it any time you’d like.
However, as said elsewhere, the moon does not have a “heavy side.”
Current theory has it that a large, probably Mars-sized, object hit the Earth and caused a chuck of it to go flying off into space. That chunk became the moon, settled into a orbit and slowly started moving away from the earth.
Although both the earth and moon would be jagged immediately after the collusion, gravity would smooth both bodies into almost perfectly regular spheres. A heavy side for either one is impossible, because gravity would have removed that effect after several billion years. Surface features, like the unequal distribution of continents on earth, are too small and light to play any role in gravitational attraction. For almost all purposes, over astronomical distances gravity is calculated as if the mass is a point at the center at the body.
The moon was created from the lighter materials that were part of the earth’s crust. It doesn’t have the radioactive metals that give off heat and keep the earth’s core molten. There’s no reason to think that the moon isn’t cold rock. It has been ever since it cooled down after the heat of the collision.
Wobbles come about from changes in distance in elliptical orbits rather than from differences in mass distribution.
This lines up absolutely perfectly with what the experts know from “empirical science” whatever you mean by that.
Well, empirical science is based on what can be observed in repeatable experiments, such as cannot be done with hypothetical stuff like something crashing into the earth and the moon popping out. I was basing my hypothesis about a heavy side to the moon on stuff like there being a deposit of magnetic iron ore near enough to the north pole that compasses can work in most cases. I guess this is verifyable by repeated experiments, but I’m not sure if anyone has ever mined deep enough to find the iron ore. I’m pretty sure the “experts” haven’t mined deep enough to verify their theory and are still relying on the cover of “billions of years” to keep inquiring minds at bay. Wobbles definitely CAN come from uneven mass distribution, and I challenge anyone to take a slice out of any moon or planet and find it totally homogenous with respect to mass distribution. Take a slice out of one of those clowns that pop back up straight after you hit them, (they wobble a bit first) and you see the reason at the bottom. Gravity pulls the heavy side back down. Take a slice out of one of those clowns that believe things are billions of years old, and you see the reason at the top. Just trying to get you to think instead of believe all the balderdash that was presented to us as fact when we were too young to think about it for ourselves.
In other words, you’re a Creationist.
This thread (with all the others you started) consequently belongs in Great Debates.
Oh, good grief. I thought you were honestly confused. Now I understand you’re deliberately and hopelessly ignorant.
In another thread I recently said:
Your post is nothing but a variation on “open mind.”
Good luck with the world.
I’m pretty sure they have, actually. The “billions” theory is supported by guys who don’t give a fuck about the moon.
We keep on trying to dig down to the Magnetic North Pole, but the darn thing keeps on running away. It must be a special high speed ore deposit.
Now I’m confused. I new Creationism was stupid, but does it really include a lot of misinformation about the Earth’s magnetic field?
Make that, “I knew Creationism was stupid . . . .”
Actually, I’ve seen several arguments about the decay rate of Earth’s magnetic field proving the planet is only 10,000 years old, or some-such.
They’re fond of cherry-picking scientific factoids, extrapolating wildly from them and ignoring the rest.
I like discussions like this because it’s a chance to serve the goal of fighting ignorance – including mine, since I always seem to learn something I didn’t know. (As Will Rogers said, “Everybody’s ignorant, just in different ways.”) Of course, sometimes there’s willful ignorance, where you might as well talk to a wall.
I’m afraid you misunderstand how science works. It is just as valid to predict what is expected to be found from a singular event in the past (like the Big Bang of the impact that formed the moon) as it is to do experiments in the high school science way. Not all speculations about the past are equally valid.
Just have some honest questions and opinions. If you think we need to debate, begin by reading Psalm 53 and we’ll go from there. Hope you don’t fit that category. I shouldn’t label or call names. Sorry if I called you a clown.
I was just giving a definition of empirical science for the previous person who said “whatever that means.” I have no problems with predictions, hypotheses or theories as long as they are clearly labeled as such and not presented as established fact. It is a fact that there is a tree (fossilized) in Yellowstone park, I believe, growing up through what someone thought to be “millions of years” worth of sediment. Go figure. That tree had to stand there and not rot. Somebody made a questionable prediction there and I’m questioning a lot of similar ones.
Anyway I was referring to their theory about the moon.
Well, I hoped you guys would be at least a little kinder than ome of the cliques out there. It seemed like it at first, and I’m sure I’m not the best example of charity. But I do have some honest questions. I was hoping for verifyable answers. Maybe you can add gullible to your list of names.
The Bible does not give options that pertain to science.
And I questioned you on “empirical science” because it was obvious you do not understand the term. We have done empirical science on the moon. We’ve been there and we brought back pieces of the moon. Furthermore, we’ve had satellites orbiting the moon for decades, recording every aspect of the sphere. We’ve taken these objects and data, we analyzed them in more ways than all the believers in the world can imagine, and we used them to produce our current understanding of how the moon formed, what it is made of, its internal structure, and its behavior. This is exactly what empirical science is and does.
And that is why I said in so many words that what the experts know, they know from empirical science. You cannot get around that with innuendo, insults, or half-assed creationist nonsense.
You won’t find anybody anywhere who knows anything whatsoever about science to agree with your notions. They are anti-scientific, and emerge from purest ignorance about science and the scientific process. Don’t look here for kindness when it comes to deliberate ignorance. And yours is obviously deliberate.
Unlike the moon itself, the theory doesn’t exist in a vacuum. There are independent sciences like astronomy (the parts that study heavenly objects other than the moon itself), geology, paleontology and physics that independently point to an Earth and universe billions of years old. If you’re going to refute the lunar scientists, you’ll have to keep going and refute the works of people who have never studied the moon or even referenced it in their writings.
Who was that somebody? What was the questionable prediction? How is it similar to the ones you are questioning? What are the ones you are questioning?
For the tree, take a look at this. In fact, you should browse through all of talkorigins.org and be enlightened.
It’s clear that you don’t understand the scientific meanings of hypothesis, theory, and fact. Informally, a hypothesis is an initial suggestion. If this has been tested, and has not been falsified, and is in accord with all the available evidence, it can get promoted to a theory, which is the strongest thing you can say about a mechanism. or explanation. A fact is an observation.
As for evolution, say, we have observed species evolve both naturally and in the lab. Speciation is a fact, thus evolution is a fact. How things evolve, descent with modification, is a theory, but about as strong a one as you can get. There are details of the mechanisms involved with are hypotheses, and many hypotheses in the past have been falsified.
For the age of the earth, we have observations of radioactive decay, and observations of measurements of the percentage of various isotopes in rocks. We have astronomical observations that indicate that natural laws are pretty much constant as far back as we can see. (A lot further than 6,000 years.) We have the independent evidence of the fossil record. We have independent evidence found on the moon. We have the red shift, and evidence of the Big Bang. Add it all up, and we have a pretty damn strong theory about the age of the universe and the Earth.