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Author Topic:   Could asteroids lead to the extinction of YECism ?
vimesey
Member
Posts: 1398
From: Birmingham, England
Joined: 09-21-2011


(1)
Message 1 of 137 (722254)
03-19-2014 9:36 AM


I was reading an article about the recent research into a double asteroid impact in Sweden some 458 million years ago, and it got me thinking.
We have a couple of clocks which we can look at to confirm a non-YEC solar system - the moon and the earth.
The moon has around 300,000 craters with diameters of 1km or more, which are visible to telescopes on the earth. Presumably, someone, somewhere is counting how many of these craters are formed over a period of time (or at least could do). In order for YEC's 6,000 year timeframe to be correct, there would need to be around 50 one-mile craters formed, on average, each year, to account for the 300,000 we now see. Now, I haven't done the research, but I will bet whatever a YEC likes, that any such research will definitely not show asteroid impacts creating one mile craters in the moon every week or so. Does anyone know if such research exists ?
As for the earth, I read on Wiki that the earth has been struck at least 60 times by objects of a diameter of 3 miles or more. That is one heck of a fender bender ! (Apparently, the largest nuclear explosion we've created had a yield of 50 megatons. These little beauties yield an impressive ten million megatons each !) Some of them are so big they led to mass extinctions, worldwide winters etc. These are the sorts of bumps that can't go un-noticed in some remote corner of the planet - the one in Tunguska only had an estimated yield of 10-15 megatons. No, we're talking about the big mamas here.
So if we've had 60 in the past 6,000 years in earth, that's one every hundred years or so. That would be a jaw dropper of an exciting experience on our world, wouldn't it ? We'd have the history books brimming with exciting accounts of regular and major catastrophes, which mankind miraculously survives. Except we haven't, have we ?
(I'll be generous and concede that the sort of tsunami that one of these babies would create if it landed in the Mediterranean, could conceivably be mistaken for a worldwide flood, but that still leaves you with 59 to find, in the last 6,000 years).
Have YECers ever had a go at explaining these, does anyone know ?

Could there be any greater conceit, than for someone to believe that the universe has to be simple enough for them to be able to understand it ?

Replies to this message:
 Message 5 by Faith, posted 03-19-2014 1:36 PM vimesey has replied
 Message 12 by NoNukes, posted 03-20-2014 9:12 AM vimesey has replied

  
vimesey
Member
Posts: 1398
From: Birmingham, England
Joined: 09-21-2011


Message 4 of 137 (722261)
03-19-2014 11:45 AM
Reply to: Message 3 by JonF
03-19-2014 11:17 AM


Yeah, it's funny how the moon, that well-known hotbed of volcanic activity, could have produced calderas, evenly distributed across its entire surface, none of which (when being formed) destroyed any of the calderas in near proximity to them ;-)
Still, they're circular, and look a bit like calderas, so it's probably enough to convince Jorge's average reader.

Could there be any greater conceit, than for someone to believe that the universe has to be simple enough for them to be able to understand it ?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 3 by JonF, posted 03-19-2014 11:17 AM JonF has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 29 by Faith, posted 03-21-2014 4:02 AM vimesey has replied

  
vimesey
Member
Posts: 1398
From: Birmingham, England
Joined: 09-21-2011


Message 10 of 137 (722314)
03-20-2014 7:50 AM
Reply to: Message 5 by Faith
03-19-2014 1:36 PM


Re: Origin of asteroids in the Flood
I found one creationist website attributing the origin of the asteroids to Earth itself, specifically to what is described as a very explosive opening of the "fountains of the deep" as mentioned in the Bible, shooting rock into space. Here's a discussion of that theory
Let's start with that one. I've had a look at your link, and done some pretty basic reading around on this sort of topic. You've got some fairly basic problems with this sort of scenario. First off, we haven't seen anything remotely like this on earth - no rocks being shot with sufficient velocity from an initial single impetus, to make it into space (let alone escape earth's gravity thereafter). You're into pure speculation.
Secondly, the sorts of energy required to do this (given the gravity the earth produces, and the effects of friction from our atmosphere), would result in the disintegration and vaporization of any rocks which were subject to such energies, long before they even got out of our atmosphere, let alone reached the moon.
And even ignoring the disintegration problem, given the sorts of energy that would be needed to produce enough projectiles to create nearly 300,000 meteor strikes on the moon, as a result of such an explosion, we would be talking about a global catastrophe which would make a 40 day flood with sunshine and olive branches at the end of it, seem like a short spring shower. You're probably looking (at least) at the equivalent of hundreds of simultaneous super volcano eruptions - and just one of those would likely result in the ejection of enough sulphur into the atmosphere to cool global temperatures by 10 degrees for a decade. That's just one of them.
The problem you face with speculation, along these lines, is that you really need to think through all of the consequences of the scenario. The more you do that, the more you realise just how unlikely the speculation is, when compared with solid, tested, scientific theories, well-founded in evidence.

Could there be any greater conceit, than for someone to believe that the universe has to be simple enough for them to be able to understand it ?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 5 by Faith, posted 03-19-2014 1:36 PM Faith has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 30 by Tangle, posted 03-21-2014 4:09 AM vimesey has not replied

  
vimesey
Member
Posts: 1398
From: Birmingham, England
Joined: 09-21-2011


Message 13 of 137 (722320)
03-20-2014 10:15 AM
Reply to: Message 12 by NoNukes
03-20-2014 9:12 AM


Well, the title of the thread is more of a play on words rather than any expectation (or even hope).
It does strike me, though, from the Cosmos and Nye threads, that there does seem to be a bit of an uplift in science's fight for the public's understanding. Maybe there is some small hope :-)

Could there be any greater conceit, than for someone to believe that the universe has to be simple enough for them to be able to understand it ?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 12 by NoNukes, posted 03-20-2014 9:12 AM NoNukes has seen this message but not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 14 by dwise1, posted 03-20-2014 10:36 AM vimesey has replied

  
vimesey
Member
Posts: 1398
From: Birmingham, England
Joined: 09-21-2011


(1)
Message 15 of 137 (722323)
03-20-2014 11:12 AM
Reply to: Message 14 by dwise1
03-20-2014 10:36 AM


Nil desperandum though !
There's always a fence sitter or two to save ! :-)

Could there be any greater conceit, than for someone to believe that the universe has to be simple enough for them to be able to understand it ?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 14 by dwise1, posted 03-20-2014 10:36 AM dwise1 has not replied

  
vimesey
Member
Posts: 1398
From: Birmingham, England
Joined: 09-21-2011


Message 31 of 137 (722430)
03-21-2014 5:24 AM
Reply to: Message 29 by Faith
03-21-2014 4:02 AM


Re: Craters on the dark side of the moon
I wasn't suggesting an absence of any volcanic activity - I was saying to you that for the moon to have 300,000 calderas, over one mile wide, on just the visible bit of the moon, (and just over the course of 6,000 years at that), it would have to be spectacularly volcanic. Not just historically a bit volcanic.
And the bit about them being so evenly distributed over the moon's surface was important too. Volcanos generally form along fault lines (google "ring of fire", and ignore the results involving spicy food). Volcanos don't uniformly cover a body's surface

Could there be any greater conceit, than for someone to believe that the universe has to be simple enough for them to be able to understand it ?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 29 by Faith, posted 03-21-2014 4:02 AM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 32 by Faith, posted 03-21-2014 6:02 AM vimesey has replied

  
vimesey
Member
Posts: 1398
From: Birmingham, England
Joined: 09-21-2011


Message 37 of 137 (722445)
03-21-2014 8:33 AM
Reply to: Message 32 by Faith
03-21-2014 6:02 AM


Re: Craters on the dark side of the moon
By the way I do find this topic interesting but don't have the time or energy to put into it right now.
Fair enough, but I hope that you (or another YECer) will be able to at some point. The attraction of this topic for me is that the challenge to the YEC chronology and narrative is quite accessible, not requiring a great depth of scientific expertise (which I don't have). Useful participation is much easier for me than rolling up my sleeves and improving on my basic awareness of genetics, for example, so I could debate some more of the evolution threads.

Could there be any greater conceit, than for someone to believe that the universe has to be simple enough for them to be able to understand it ?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 32 by Faith, posted 03-21-2014 6:02 AM Faith has not replied

  
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