Quick Questions, Short Answers - No Debate

If you have a quick question about using the board or where to find info on a subject, etc.; this is the thread for you.

NOTE: This is not a debate thread.

Edited by AdminPD, : Signature Update

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Usually, in a well-conducted debate, speakers are either emotionally uncommitted or can preserve sufficient detachment to maintain a coolly academic approach.-- Encyclopedia Brittanica, on debate

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I've added a signature to my profile, but it doesn't display.

Procedure followed:
1. Entered profile area.
2. Typed text into the Signature edit box.
3. Clicked the Submit Modifications button immediately below that section.

How to I get my signature to display?

Edited by dwise1, : Added the procedure I had followed.

Edited by dwise1, : No reason given.

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{When you search for God, y}ou can't go to the people who believe already. They've made up their minds and want to convince you of their own personal heresy.
("The Jehovah Contract", AKA "Der Jehova-Vertrag", by Viktor Koman, 1984)

And we who listen to the stars, or walk the dusty grade,
Or break the very atoms down to see how they are made,
Or study cells, or living things, seek truth with open hand.
The profoundest act of worship is to try to understand.
Deep in flower and in flesh, in star and soil and seed,
The truth has left its living word for anyone to read.
So turn and look where best you think the story is unfurled.
Humans wrote the Bible; God wrote the world.
(filk song "Word of God" by Dr. Catherine Faber, http://www.echoschildren.org/CDlyrics/WORDGOD.HTML)

when posting, check the box to show signature

Thanks. Didn't see that one.

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{When you search for God, y}ou can't go to the people who believe already. They've made up their minds and want to convince you of their own personal heresy.
("The Jehovah Contract", AKA "Der Jehova-Vertrag", by Viktor Koman, 1984)

And we who listen to the stars, or walk the dusty grade,
Or break the very atoms down to see how they are made,
Or study cells, or living things, seek truth with open hand.
The profoundest act of worship is to try to understand.
Deep in flower and in flesh, in star and soil and seed,
The truth has left its living word for anyone to read.
So turn and look where best you think the story is unfurled.
Humans wrote the Bible; God wrote the world.
(filk song "Word of God" by Dr. Catherine Faber, http://www.echoschildren.org/CDlyrics/WORDGOD.HTML)

As a bit of testing for myself, I've had a look at whats called the evolution cruncher.. Basically its a pretty large list of misinformation, straw mans and just plain lies.

So I'm slowly working my way through it, knowing that a lot of the questions asked by new creationists will probably come from this "cruncher".
And I come upon the question about the oort cloud..
So I've been looking over the internet about the oort cloud but I can't really find any solid information..

Theres little bits of data here and there, can anyone point me to a book or article that seems to have more precise and conclusive data on it.. Most pages I visit give a lot of "we aren't really sure, but it might indicate or might prove" without any backing real information.

Can anyone help me out with this one ?

Bold is after edit.

Here I show what the evolution has to say about Comets, now I know the oort cloud has been shown to be the primary source of comets.. But as I said, I can't find much information on it (though in a recent chat I have been given some links so some nice information, so I'm looking into that as well)

8 - COMETS—Comets, journeying around the sun, are assumed to have the same age as our world and solar system. But, as *Fred Whipple has acknowledged, astronomers have no idea where or how comets originated. Yet we know that they are continually disintegrating. This is because they are composed of bits of rocky debris held together by frozen gases and water. Each time a comet circles the sun, some of the ice is evaporated and some of the gas is boiled away by the sun’s heat. Additional material is lost through gravitational forces, tail formation, meteor stream production, and radiative forces. The most spectacular part of a comet is its tail, yet this consists of material driven away from its head by solar energy. All the tail material is lost in space as the comet moves onward.

A number of comets have broken up and dissipated within the period of human observation. Some of those regularly seen in the nineteenth century have now vanished. Others have died spectacularly by plunging into the sun.

Evidently all the comets should self-destruct within a time frame that is fairly short. Careful study has indicated that the effect of this dissolution process on short-term comets would have totally dissipated them within 10,000 years.

There are numerous comets circling our sun, including many short-term ones, with no source of new comets known to exist.

Edited by Zucadragon, : Added evolution cruncher info.

This isn't exactly a short question.

Why don't you go ahead and copy the text and place it in to the Proposed Topics forum

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Comments on moderation procedures (or wish to respond to admin messages)? - Go to: General discussion of moderation procedures Thread Reopen Requests Considerations of topic promotions from the "Proposed New Topics" forum Proposed New (Great Debate) Topics New Members: to get an understanding of what makes great posts, check out: "Post of the Month" Forum "Columnist's Corner" Forum See also Forum Guidelines, Style Guides for EvC, and Assistance w/ Forum Formatting

Thou shalt not have any other Mods before Me

S/he did.

AdminPD told him/her to move it here.

8 - COMETS—Comets, journeying around the sun, are assumed to have the same age as our world and solar system. But, as *Fred Whipple has acknowledged, astronomers have no idea where or how comets originated. Evidently all the comets should self-destruct within a time frame that is fairly short. Careful study has indicated that the effect of this dissolution process on short-term comets would have totally dissipated them within 10,000 years.

Typical creationist nonsense. Even if we had no clue where comets came from this would not logically result. The only thing you need to have to make this argument invalid is a source for comets that can "replenish" the number that we see -- specifically short term comets.

The other question is what causes the self-destruction -- if it is due to repeated passages close to the gravity well of the sun (causing tidal forces to break up the body), then it is related to the number of passes rather than the term of the comet.

http://www.solarviews.com/eng/oort.htm

quote:

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The Oort cloud is an immense spherical cloud surrounding the planetary system and extending approximately 3 light years, about 30 trillion kilometers from the Sun. This vast distance is considered the edge of the Sun's orb of physical, gravitational, or dynamical influence.

Within the cloud, comets are typically tens of millions of kilometers apart. They are weakly bound to the sun, and passing stars and other forces can readily change their orbits, sending them into the inner solar system or out to interstellar space. This is especially true of comets on the outer edges of the Oort cloud. The structure of the cloud is believed to consist of a relatively dense core that lies near the ecliptic plane and gradually replenishes the outer boundaries, creating a steady state. One sixth of an estimated six trillion icy objects or comets are in the outer region with the remainder in the relatively dense core.

The Oort cloud is the source of long-period comets and possibly higher-inclination intermediate comets that were pulled into shorter period orbits by the planets, such as Halley and Swift-Tuttle. Comets can also shift their orbits due to jets of gas and dust that rocket from their icy surface as they approach the sun. Although they get off course, comets do have initial orbits with widely different ranges, from 200 years to once every million years or more. Comets entering the planetary region for the first time, come from an average distance of 44,000 astronomical units.

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So the Oort cloud can supply new long-term comets at any time for as long as the cloud exists. Any long-term comet can be converted to a short-term comet by a change in orbit (passes too close to Jupiter on one of it's rare long-term passes).

http://www.fas.org/irp/imint/docs/rst/Sect19/Sect19_22.html

quote:

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As of 1995, 878 comets have been catalogued; most now have their orbits reasonably well calculated. Of these 184 have definitely been established as periodic (at intervals of years to centuries pass the inner Solar System as they orbit the Sun; these can be divided into Short-Period (KBO) and Long Period (OC) types; new comets and others of the 878 may also be periodic but more observations over time are needed to confirm this. The number of comets - most still undetected - within the Solar System may be in the trillions.

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Doesn't sound like we need to worry about running out any time soon - if we lost a short-term comet every year and replaced it with one of the trillions in the Oort cloud, it would be a very long time ...

Enjoy.

ps - this is a Hovind classic, and a PRATT

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/hovind/howgood-yea.html#proof3

Edited by RAZD, : clarity.

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The bold part was not in the PNT. In his original post he was only asking about books or articles that would have more precise info.

Theres little bits of data here and there, can anyone point me to a book or article that seems to have more precise and conclusive data on it..

The bold seems to be what he has found so far.

He isn't really wanting a debate, just direction on the web. So no one should be arguing with him, just directing him.

Just to give you an idea of the number of objects in the Oort cloud, the mass of the Oort cloud is something greater than 3x Earth. Since the density of most comets is considerably lower that the average density of earth (remember frozen water is even less dense than liquid water) there is a whole bunch of candidates out there to draw comets from.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

http://www.skepticwiki.org/index.php/Comets

See also my thread on Even Younger Earth Creationism.

Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

okay, I'm going to be gone for a week, so no replies during that time, thanks for all the info so far, got it bookmarked/copied and with some help I got at the chat, I'm also going to look around a bit more.

Thanks and have a nice week.

Why do dogs rub themselves in dead and decaying animal corpses?

I always thought it was becasue it is what wild dogs/their ancestors did to disguise their smell to potential prey.

I did a google and fount this link

You know, I'm happy to learn new things, but you could google things yourself. :)

The pact identity explanation actually makes sense, considering all 3 of my dogs rubbed themselves in the dead... something.