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Author Topic:   Counter-Intuitive Science
New Cat's Eye
Inactive Member


Message 31 of 182 (599852)
01-11-2011 10:33 AM


Cold water holds more hardness than hot water.
Pure water is more corrosive than dirty water.
Edited by Adminnemooseus, : "harness" to "hardness".

  
dwise1
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Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


Message 32 of 182 (599911)
01-11-2011 2:59 PM
Reply to: Message 25 by jar
01-10-2011 12:45 PM


Re: Floating Cannonball
Or that an iron boat floats in water.
Talked with a WWII "Dollar-a-year man" (wealthy men who supported the war effort by working on goverment/military projects for a nominal salary -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dollar-a-year_men) who did civil engineering work on ports in the Caribbean. One of the things they did was make barges out of concrete.
Concrete barges float, even when loaded.
Coral does not blow up when explosives are applied to it, but rather it compresses. Or so he told us they discovered when they tried to blast shipping channels through coral reefs.
Edited by dwise1, : That's a dollar-a-year, not a dollar-a-day

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dwise1
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Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


Message 33 of 182 (599927)
01-11-2011 3:57 PM
Reply to: Message 11 by jar
01-10-2011 10:48 AM


That summer and winter are not related to how close the earth is to the sun.
That should also implode the minds of those who argue that we're at just the perfect distance from the sun and that if we were even the least bit closer we'd burn up and the least bit farther away we'd freeze. In the dead of winter (around 04 Jan), we're 3 million miles closer to the sun than we are in the height of summer.
Related to that -- and also used by him -- was Kent Hovind's solar-mass-loss claim, that since the sun is losing about 5 million tons of mass per second as it "burns its fuel", the sun's mass 5 billion years ago would have been so immense as to "suck the earth in". Seems intuitively correct, since 5 billion years of losing mass at that rate would result in a total mass loss of about 7.89 x 1023 tons, equal to about 132 earths. Very impressive sounding, especially given the assumption also made that if we tip the delicate balance of the earth's orbit being at just the right distance from the sun, then we'd burn up.
Turns out that that mass loss amounts to a few hundredths of one percent of the sun's total mass. And that the sun's original mass would have "sucked the earth in" by about 40,000 (forty thousand) miles. Well, we've already seen what a difference 3 million miles makes to temperatures on earth!
The big numbers that science works with, especially in astonomy, can be counter-intuitive.
Edited by dwise1, : just found my earlier calculations

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Coragyps
Member (Idle past 734 days)
Posts: 5553
From: Snyder, Texas, USA
Joined: 11-12-2002


Message 34 of 182 (599935)
01-11-2011 4:24 PM
Reply to: Message 33 by dwise1
01-11-2011 3:57 PM


The big numbers that science works with, especially in astonomy, can be counter-intuitive.
Yes. Like my favorite scale model of the Solar System, where the sun is a beach ball and the Earth is a BB 125 feet away. Sirius is another beach ball 7000(?) miles away, and you and I are as tall as hydrogen molecules.

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slevesque
Member (Idle past 4640 days)
Posts: 1456
Joined: 05-14-2009


Message 35 of 182 (599938)
01-11-2011 4:52 PM
Reply to: Message 33 by dwise1
01-11-2011 3:57 PM


That should also implode the minds of those who argue that we're at just the perfect distance from the sun and that if we were even the least bit closer we'd burn up and the least bit farther away we'd freeze. In the dead of winter (around 04 Jan), we're 3 million miles closer to the sun than we are in the height of summer.
I'll start by saying that I don't use this argument because it is simply normal when you consider all the planets in the universe that one would have the characteristics the earth has.
However, I just wanna point out that this is a strawman. As far as I know, the argument isn't ''if we were even the least bit closer we'd burn up and the least bit farther away we'd freeze'', it's simply that earth is at the right distance for life (liquid water) and it is usually coupled with all the other factors the earth has that makes life possible here.

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Replies to this message:
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Tanypteryx
Member
Posts: 4344
From: Oregon, USA
Joined: 08-27-2006
Member Rating: 5.9


Message 36 of 182 (599940)
01-11-2011 4:55 PM


When I was about 5 years old another kid told me about Antarctica and that it and the South Pole were covered with ice. I was sure he was lying because I knew that "the birds" flew south, where it was warmer, for the winter. (The same kid told me about sex, but none of that turned out to be true).
A bit later Admiral Byrd became one of my heros.

Tactimatically speaking, the molecubes are out of alignment. -- S.Valley
What if Eleanor Roosevelt had wings? -- Monty Python
You can't build a Time Machine without Weird Optics -- S. Valley

  
Coragyps
Member (Idle past 734 days)
Posts: 5553
From: Snyder, Texas, USA
Joined: 11-12-2002


Message 37 of 182 (599941)
01-11-2011 5:01 PM
Reply to: Message 35 by slevesque
01-11-2011 4:52 PM


Though I saw a screenshot off facebook the other day where the poster said that all life on Earth would bake if we orbited ten feet closer to the sun.....

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Theodoric
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Posts: 9076
From: Northwest, WI, USA
Joined: 08-15-2005
Member Rating: 3.7


Message 38 of 182 (599944)
01-11-2011 5:07 PM
Reply to: Message 35 by slevesque
01-11-2011 4:52 PM


Tell the fundies not to use it then
However, I just wanna point out that this is a strawman.
Then you need to speak to your fellow fundies. This argument is used repeatedly.
Edited by Theodoric, : No reason given.

Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts

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slevesque
Member (Idle past 4640 days)
Posts: 1456
Joined: 05-14-2009


Message 39 of 182 (599945)
01-11-2011 5:11 PM
Reply to: Message 37 by Coragyps
01-11-2011 5:01 PM


I think the whole point of the strawman fallacy is to take the weaker/est form of an argument as representative of the argument instead of the more reasoned version ...

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New Cat's Eye
Inactive Member


Message 40 of 182 (599946)
01-11-2011 5:13 PM
Reply to: Message 37 by Coragyps
01-11-2011 5:01 PM


Though I saw a screenshot off facebook the other day where the poster said that all life on Earth would bake if we orbited ten feet closer to the sun.....
Edited by Catholic Scientist, : No reason given.

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Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 41 of 182 (599949)
01-11-2011 5:16 PM
Reply to: Message 35 by slevesque
01-11-2011 4:52 PM


However, I just wanna point out that this is a strawman. As far as I know, the argument isn't ''if we were even the least bit closer we'd burn up and the least bit farther away we'd freeze'' ...
On this very forum:
Doubting Too writes:
For example, the position of the earth vis a vis the sun. Our planet is so well placed vis a vis the sun. A few feet away from the sun (compared to where we are now) , and we all freeze to death. A few feet near the sun and we all burn.
Evidently he has never asked himself why going upstairs isn't fatal.

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dwise1
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Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


Message 42 of 182 (599951)
01-11-2011 5:30 PM
Reply to: Message 35 by slevesque
01-11-2011 4:52 PM


From Hovind's article, Universe Is Not 'Billions of Years' Old, which was on his website (repeated reorganization has long ago broken the link I had):
quote:
The shrinking sun limits the earth-sun relationship to less than "billions of years." The sun is losing both mass and diameter. Changing the mass would upset the fine gravitational balance that keeps the earth at just the right distance for life to survive.
Hovind is just one of many creationist speakers and writers (of which Hovind is not one) who will point to a long list of things that are just the right size and at just the right distances, etc, to make life here possible and that if any one of those things were just the slightest bit off then life could not exist, therefore it all had to be designed intelligently, etc, etc, etc. And their listeners, readers, and followers have regurgitated that message ad nauseum in countless fora. While the originators of such pronouncements (themselves often also regurgitators of what they had been fed by others) are very rarely if ever clear of how much sloppage they could allow in all those "everything just right" items for them to still be "just right", their regurgitators clearly have no idea how much sloppage could be allowed and never (that I have seen in 3 decades in the trenches) give any indication that they are even aware that there could be any sloppage, such that they appear to indeed believe that even the slightest variance would negate the possibility of life.
However, I just wanna point out that this is a strawman. As far as I know, the argument isn't ''if we were even the least bit closer we'd burn up and the least bit farther away we'd freeze'', it's simply that earth is at the right distance for life (liquid water) and it is usually coupled with all the other factors the earth has that makes life possible here.
Is it a strawman to repeat what a near-constant parade of creationists have themselves claimed and insisted upon? Certainly, their claim is itself a strawman which establishes false premises with which to support their own claims of the absolute necessity for design.
Now, the actual argument is indeed that earth is in our solar system's habitable zone (AKA "Goldilocks Zone"), where the temperatures are just right for liquid water to exist among other factors. But that is much more the scientific argument and not the creationist one -- the creationist argument is a simplified version which pays very little or no attention to what's involved.
How wide is our "Goldilocks Zone"? There's not much agreement on this, but I've seen it optimistically estimated to extend from just outside Venus' orbit to out beyond Mars' orbit, and pessimistically at +/- 9.3 million miles from our average orbital radius.
That is a lot of sloppage! Do creationists allow for +/- 9.3 million miles when making their claim? Would they even? Would they even allow for +/- 1.55 million miles of the earth's annual orbit? I believe that they would not, until they have been educated to the fact that that is what really happens. And even then they would most likely not accept it, judging by my past experience with creationists.
A possible sub-text to this topic is that creationist plans for science education are that it must teach what is intuitively obvious and that teaching children things that are counter-intuitive is harmful to their mental health (I've read the late Dr. Henry Morris making just such an argument for barring the "counter-intuitive teachings of evolution"). But so much of science, of what really is, is counter-intuitive, as we have been demonstrating with our examples here.
Edited by dwise1, : word choice: "counter-intuitive" instead of "not intuitively obvious"

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Tanypteryx
Member
Posts: 4344
From: Oregon, USA
Joined: 08-27-2006
Member Rating: 5.9


Message 43 of 182 (599952)
01-11-2011 5:30 PM
Reply to: Message 41 by Dr Adequate
01-11-2011 5:16 PM


Luckily, when we fly we are protected by the body of the airplane. I remember reading somewhere that birds have been known to burst into flames if they fly too high and all those satellites are part of the NASA conspiracy.

Tactimatically speaking, the molecubes are out of alignment. -- S.Valley
What if Eleanor Roosevelt had wings? -- Monty Python
You can't build a Time Machine without Weird Optics -- S. Valley

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dwise1
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Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


Message 44 of 182 (599959)
01-11-2011 6:00 PM
Reply to: Message 39 by slevesque
01-11-2011 5:11 PM


I think the whole point of the strawman fallacy is to take the weaker/est form of an argument as representative of the argument instead of the more reasoned version ...
But that is not what I was doing. Read it again, please:
DWise1 writes:
That should also implode the minds of those who argue that we're at just the perfect distance from the sun and that if we were even the least bit closer we'd burn up and the least bit farther away we'd freeze.
I was not refering to imploding the minds of those taking the more reasoned version, but rather precisely those who take the less reasoned and ignorantly literalist version. Because those are the ones we keep encountering.
There are ignorati (those who are ignorant of the science, etc, involved) on all sides (there are, after all, not just two sides to this; the "creation/evolution dichotomy" is a false one created and promulgated by creationists). The main difference between pro-science ignorati and creationist ignorati is that the pro-science ignorati don't normally get involved in these discussions, whereas the vast majority of creationists who get involved are the ignorati. Most non-ignorati creationists know better and avoid such discussions, or else they do get involved, but because they don't toe the party dogma they often find themselves opposed by their own ignorati brethren.

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slevesque
Member (Idle past 4640 days)
Posts: 1456
Joined: 05-14-2009


Message 45 of 182 (599962)
01-11-2011 6:10 PM
Reply to: Message 42 by dwise1
01-11-2011 5:30 PM


Is it a strawman to repeat what a near-constant parade of creationists have themselves claimed and insisted upon? Certainly, their claim is itself a strawman which establishes false premises with which to support their own claims of the absolute necessity for design.
I'll be honest, I hadn't heard of anything like it. What there seems to be is one person sayign something stupid on FB, and everybody thinking this represents a real creationist position.
It's a bit like the old ''If evolution is true, why are there still monkeys ?''. Sure, you'll encounter it once in a while on the internet, but does anyone really think this is an actual argument you can find in creationist litterature ?
Because if I've never heard it before, and it's blatantly stupid, then chances are it wasn't ''claimed and insisted on'' by a ''parade of creationists'' ...
How wide is our "Goldilocks Zone"? There's not much agreement on this, but I've seen it optimistically estimated to extend from just outside Venus' orbit to out beyond Mars' orbit, and pessimistically at +/- 9.3 million miles from our average orbital radius.
As I said, I'm not fond of the argument. Besides it is usually coupled with all the other factors that makes life on earth possible.

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