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 Brian Thomas shoots the Moon!
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filthy
SFN Die Hard

USA
14408 Posts

Posted - 04/14/2011 :  06:02:52  Show Profile Send filthy a Private Message  Reply with Quote
ICR apologetics become lamer and more pathetic by the day. Here’s Brian commenting on the dark side of the moon:
New Images Show Far Side of the Moon Looks Young
by Brian Thomas, M.S. *

NASA recently released the most detailed images yet of the "far" side of the moon, or the side that faces away from earth.1 The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter took thousands of images that were assembled into a mosaic of the lunar surface. Both the moon's far and near sides contain craters, which may hold clues to its history.

The moon's craters have been the subject of many discussions. For example, researchers thought that the moon's cratering rate has been extraordinarily slow because of their belief that the solar system is billions of years old. If impacts caused craters at even a moderate rate, then during that many years the moon's surface should have been pulverized many times over, leaving the surface very heavily cratered. To them, the reason there are so few craters on the moon is that impacts have been relatively rare in the moon's history.

Farther down, he discusses volcanoes on the moon, and that brings up a question: If the moon is only 6,000 years old, is that enough time for it’s volcanism to go extinct and cool off into what we have today? I dunno. Neither, I suspect, does Brian.






"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)

"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres


"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude

Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,

and Crypto-Communist!


Edited by - filthy on 04/14/2011 06:07:42

On fire for Christ
SFN Regular

Norway
1273 Posts

Posted - 04/14/2011 :  06:09:26   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send On fire for Christ a Private Message  Reply with Quote
I don't see what is so inflammatory about the quoted passage. Is it not true?

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Dr. Mabuse
Septic Fiend

Sweden
9687 Posts

Posted - 04/14/2011 :  07:23:14   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Send Dr. Mabuse an ICQ Message Send Dr. Mabuse a Private Message  Reply with Quote
Originally posted by On fire for Christ

I don't see what is so inflammatory about the quoted passage. Is it not true?
It's the entire article that is objectionable, not necessary and specifically the part filthy quoted. They are lying by omission and cherry-picking and counting on the reader to draw the wrong (their) conclusion because they are not particularly informed in physics and astronomy.

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On fire for Christ
SFN Regular

Norway
1273 Posts

Posted - 04/14/2011 :  07:43:05   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send On fire for Christ a Private Message  Reply with Quote
I see, I guess I wont read it then

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filthy
SFN Die Hard

USA
14408 Posts

Posted - 04/14/2011 :  11:44:31   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send filthy a Private Message  Reply with Quote
Originally posted by On fire for Christ

I see, I guess I wont read it then

You really should; it's quite interesting.

What it is, Thomas is caught in the premise that the earth is 6,000 to 10,000 years old. Unlike real scientists, he’s trapped his iron-bound and unsupported preconclusions. He has no choice but to toe the line ICR and his own thought processes have drawn in his little patch of sand. He is forced to believe that the bible is a scientific tome., if translated properly. “Properly” is all according to who is doing the translating. Me, I only read it for the stories.

Thus, as he is a pretty good writer if not a researcher, he willingly spreads the disservice ICR is doing to their followers.

Now, back to my question: Is the period of time figgered up by Bishop Ussher sufficient for the Moon to form, develop the violent volcanism that happened on Earth and have time enough to cause the caldera visible with no more than cheap binoculars, then go extinct and allow the satellite cool off. I don’t think so, but then, I am neither geologist nor volcanologst. We need qualified, second opinions.





"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)

"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres


"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude

Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,

and Crypto-Communist!

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johnnyc323
New Member

United Arab Emirates
1 Post

Posted - 01/22/2013 :  15:39:40   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Visit johnnyc323's Homepage Send johnnyc323 a Private Message  Reply with Quote

Dear filthy and Dr. Mabuse, please give me an example of misinformation provided by Brian Thomas, along with 2 corrected opinions from other sources. I've read 3 or 4 of his articles and they seemed pretty accurate to me but I don't want to be sucked into something that isn't reliable science.

If you can't find one off of the top of your head, you can use this page: http://www.icr.org/research/index/researchp_sa_r05/

Thanks!


johnnyc323
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Dr. Mabuse
Septic Fiend

Sweden
9687 Posts

Posted - 01/22/2013 :  18:20:20   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Send Dr. Mabuse an ICQ Message Send Dr. Mabuse a Private Message  Reply with Quote
Hello Johnny

Originally posted by johnnyc323


Dear filthy and Dr. Mabuse, please give me an example of misinformation provided by Brian Thomas, along with 2 corrected opinions from other sources.

First, Filthy won't be repsonding because he's been off-line pretty much since when he last wrote in this thread.
It's been a while since I read that article. I will have to go back and read it again before I can comment on the article itself, and its content.


I've read 3 or 4 of his articles and they seemed pretty accurate to me but I don't want to be sucked into something that isn't reliable science.
If you've read articles from ICR believing those are scientific papers, then I'm afraid you've already been suckered in. They are anything but.

ICR's policy statement says explicitly that any and all evidence must necessarity be interpreted in accordance with earth being only ~6000 years old. If any evidence contradict this statement, then either the evidence is wrong or we're not interpreting it right. This is the anathema of science. Science means going where ever the evidence points. Force-fitting it into a preconcieved notion to fit religious dogma is wrong. Just plain wrong.

ICR has an agenda. They are liars-for-Christ, and their mission is not to spread objective truth or do any real science. I don't think they understand what science really means.

I'll get back on that article later.


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Cuneiformist
The Imperfectionist

USA
4955 Posts

Posted - 01/22/2013 :  21:39:01   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send Cuneiformist a Private Message  Reply with Quote
Originally posted by johnnyc323


Dear filthy and Dr. Mabuse, please give me an example of misinformation provided by Brian Thomas, along with 2 corrected opinions from other sources. I've read 3 or 4 of his articles and they seemed pretty accurate to me but I don't want to be sucked into something that isn't reliable science.

If you can't find one off of the top of your head, you can use this page: http://www.icr.org/research/index/researchp_sa_r05/

Thanks!


Well, the main problem with the article is that it sets up potential straw men without citing any references and then follows up with attacks against said potential straw men all backed up by creationist literature.

For instance, at the start, Mt. Thomas says:
[R]esearchers thought that the moon's cratering rate has been extraordinarily slow because of their belief that the solar system is billions of years old. If impacts caused craters at even a moderate rate, then during that many years the moon's surface should have been pulverized many times over, leaving the surface very heavily cratered. To them, the reason there are so few craters on the moon is that impacts have been relatively rare in the moon's history.
This could be true, but it would be nice to have the actual scientific discussion. This way, things like "moderate rate" and "many times over" could be quantified, and the overall justification of their argument could be explained.

The author talks about "ghost craters" but offers no references to it. Yet, he notes that their presence is a key point in his argument. One might like an expert making an expert argument to offer something for the layperson to read.

Moreover, the author says that
Second, many, or even most, of the smaller craters on the moon and on the surfaces of other rocky bodies in the solar system were caused by secondary impacts. These are made by ejecta that were propelled upward by a major hit and then crashed back onto the surface. This means that, given billions of years of impacts plus their secondary impacts, the moon should have been pulverized even more—perhaps orders of magnitude more than photos show.
Whoa-- "many, or even most"? Is this his opinion? Scientific opinion? Or just sheer speculation? He cites two references, but they deal with Mars and Venus-- both of which are planets (not moons) and have atmospheres (of some degree or another) while the moon has essentially none. making such comparisons-- at least without offering reasons as to why such comparisons are valid-- seems weak.

So there's no point in citing misinformation along with supporting evidence-- the entire article is an unsupported fantasy.
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Dr. Mabuse
Septic Fiend

Sweden
9687 Posts

Posted - 01/23/2013 :  10:47:03   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Send Dr. Mabuse an ICQ Message Send Dr. Mabuse a Private Message  Reply with Quote
Originally posted by johnnyc323


Dear filthy and Dr. Mabuse, please give me an example of misinformation provided by Brian Thomas,

Let's see here...
Thomas writes:
For example, researchers thought that the moon's cratering rate has been extraordinarily slow because of their belief that the solar system is billions of years old.

Emphasis mine. This is a blatant misrepresentation of what is considered to be scientific consensus. It is considered a well established fact that the earth is well over 4 billion years old. Here's a link to a piece published in the peer-reviewed paper Nature: http://www.es.ucsc.edu/~rcoe/eart206/Wilde%20et%2001%20Nature%20409-175.pdf
Three of these sites yielded data that are 100, 98 and
95% concordant (Table 1), and confirm the initial estimate of the
age, giving 207Pb/206Pb ages of 4,355±4 Myr, 4,341±6 Myr and
4;364±6 Myr (2sigma), respectively (Table 1 and Fig. 2). Importantly,
the fourth site, located near the pointed, broken termination of the
crystal (right corner of Fig. 1b), was also nearly concordant (99%)
and this gave a 207Pb/206Pb age of 4,404±8 Myr (2sigma) (Fig. 2), about
40Myr older than the other results and only about 150Myr younger
than the oldest high-temperature inclusions known in meteorites17
(~4,560Myr), which constrain the maximum age for the Earth.


Let's have a look at Thomas again:
For example, researchers thought that the moon's cratering rate has been extraordinarily slow because of their belief that the solar system is billions of years old.
Again, emphasis mine. It's disengenious of Thomas, or he's just ignorant of common astronomical/geologic history. When the solar system formed, there were a freaking large amount of asteroids and comets in the solar system. So, during and shortly after the formation of earth, the planet and moon got a lot of hits. But all the hits thins out the sheer number of interplanatary objects, so the impact rate drops over time with a curve similar to inverse propotionality.
The average impact rate will be very low, or "slow" as Thomas puts it, but most of the craters will be very old, and there will be extremely few young impacts.

Also, Thomas is very vague about who these researchers are. Could as well have been genealogy researchers for all we know, since they aren't identified.

Dr. Mabuse - "When the going gets tough, the tough get Duct-tape..."
Dr. Mabuse whisper.mp3

"Equivocation is not just a job, for a creationist it's a way of life..." Dr. Mabuse

Support American Troops in Iraq:
Send them unarmed civilians for target practice..
Collateralmurder.
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