Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

Darwinists and evolutionists saving face on basic science questions

Salvador Cordova
November 16, 2013
Astronomy, News, Physics, Science
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Recall the series of threads that was sparked by this comment by a Darwinist:

if you have 500 flips of a fair coin that all come up heads, given your qualification (“fair coin”), that is outcome is perfectly consistent with fair
coins,

a 22 sigma event is consistent with fair coins

which was another example of SSDD where I asked a Darwinist if a space shuttle is an example of intelligent design, and he said, “No!”.

Barry highlighted some other comments in the wake of their fiascos:

Jerad’s DDS causes him to succumb to miller’s mendacity

and

Jerad and Neil Ricker Double Down.

In their determination to disagree with IDists on every point, even basic questions, they end up saying stupid things, and after saying them, they say even stupider things to save face.

Here is the latest. In a discussion about the work of Paul Giem, a Darwin defender chimes in and says if the Sun weren’t present:

Earth will revolve around Venus
…
Earth will become Venus’s satellite

Comment 479832, Saluting Dr. Paul Giem

All the Darwinsits at UD were unwilling to correct this error in basic science. Why is that? I’m now giving them the chance to do so.

Here are some facts, Earth has more mass than Venus:

Venus compared to Earth

Mass of Earth: 5.9736×10^24kg
Mass of Venus: 4.868 x10^24 kg

In a 2-body system, the more massive body will not orbit the less massive body. We don’t say the massive Earth will orbit the less massive satellite!

Will any Darwinists come forward and dispute one of their own who made a stupid statement like:

Earth will become Venus’s satellite

The reason the discussion about 500 fair coins and space shuttles was instructive was that it illustrated the biased behavior of one side on even basic questions. If they cannot even concede a simple, obvious points, what hope is there that they will give ground on any other matter like evolution or the origin of life? So, calling all Dariwnists, evolutionists, and anti-IDists out there. Do you agree with this statement:

Earth will become Venus’s satellite

Here is your chance to defend science from falsehood. Do you want school kids believing such statements? Are you going to defend it or argue against it?

Comments
C: use the difference in grav PE in the field, as a first approx. The speed should would come from the kinetic energy expression. KF
Since I have a CAS at hand, I just set up a differential equation and solved it. I was wondering if anybody else bothered to crunch the numbers.cantor
November 16, 2013
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C: use the difference in grav PE in the field, as a first approx. The speed should would come from the kinetic energy expression. KFkairosfocus
November 16, 2013
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H'mm: In a two body case we would get orbits around the common barycentre, as with double-stars. With Earth heavier, it would be nearer earth. But the SS is a multi-body system so absent Sol somehow, things would be quite complex. KFkairosfocus
November 16, 2013
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Has anybody bothered to calculate roughly how fast the Earth would be traveling, by the time it reached Venus' orbit, if it started at its present orbital radius with zero orbital speed and fell toward the Sun under the Sun's gravitational force?cantor
November 16, 2013
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Sal. This numberphile video might be interesting to you on how it can relate to this topic: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfoKor05k1IJGuy
November 16, 2013
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Another great essay Sal!Mung
November 16, 2013
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... if you have 500 flips of a fair coin that all come up heads, given your qualification (“fair coin”), that is outcome is perfectly consistent with fair coins, ...
I wonder why this is repeatedly brought up. "Consistent with" is a very weak assertion. Nobody would predict 500 flips all coming up heads, and people would be wondering if the coin is really fair. Nevertheless, that outcome is consistent with the assumption that the coin is fair.
All the Darwinsits at UD were unwilling to correct this error in basic science.
It's hard to say if this is a basic error. I would not say that the earth would become a venus satellite. With two bodies of roughly comparable mass, I would not call either a satellite of the other. But I haven't checked whether "satellite" has a precise enough definition to either allow this or to rule it out. Einstein taught us that there's no such thing as absolute motion. Strictly speaking, the earth and the sun are hurtling through space with intertwining paths. Strictly speaking, neither is going around the other. Heliocentrism is a convenient shorthand way of talking about it, but it involves us deciding to use the sun as a convenient center of coordinates for the sake of discussion. That's a good pragmatic choice, but that's all it is.Neil Rickert
November 16, 2013
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