I just found out what happend to the dinosaurs!

[BigChrisfilm]

Did you know that the moon is getting farther away from the earth every year? Well, about 1.5 million years ago, the earth would have been so close to the moon, that all the dinosaurs would have been mooned to death. The Moon killed the dinosaurs!!!!! (BTW, this proves the earth is not millions of years old.)

[micatala]

HAHA, this is great. This is the same thing I do with Islamist. They have answering christianity. We have answering islam. Look what I just found!

http://www.trueorigin.org/moonmb.asp

I did check this out. Let me focus on one passage (bolding mine).

[Yes, the mathematics of the earth-moon relationship is very complicated, but I totally refute the claim that its solution had to await “100 years for physicists to generate the mathematical tools, and physical models, necessary to understand the problem.” and that Slichter “lacked the mathematical tools, and the observational knowledge, to solve his problem.”

Slichter wrote his paper in 1963 and Hansen’s paper was in 1982. Is Thompson trying to tell us that within the space of 19 years mathematical progress was such that Slichter problem could now be tackled and solved. Slichter has all the maths he needed. It was not the maths that were the problem; he used perfectly sound and adequate mathematical tools; the real problem was the short age results they gave.

Note how Thompson refers to “100 years” and then includes Slichter in the next breath as though he was one of those included in this category, when he was only 19 years before Hansen was able to provide an “acceptable” age for the moon! I consider that this whole sequence of sentences has been carefully crafted by Thompson to mislead the reader into dismissing Slichter as “outdated” when in fact he wrote not long before Hansen’s paper that Thompson praises so highly.]

Actually, the fact of the matter is that the 'maths' (sic) of the moon earth system is very complicated, and confounded mathematicians, physicists, etc. for many years. The authors 'refutation' here is merely an arbitrary statement with no evidence and is no refutation at all. It seems he merely finds the actual truth inconvenient and unbeleivable.

Now, as to the point that the 19 years between Slichter and Hansen is not enough time for the development of the mathematical tools necessary to solve the problem, this again is just an arbitrary assertion.

Certainly the computational power available to Hansen would have been orders of magnitude greater than that available to Slichter. It is possible that this by itself was enough progress to make the solution possible, as such complicated systems are often solved by 'numerical methods' which are implemented on an appropriate technology.


The author goes on to try and bolster his argument by criticizing the simplifying assumptions made by Hansen, that is, that there was one continent at the pole, or at the equator. Essentially, the author seems to be saying that since Hansen's simplifying assumptions are not necessarily what actually occurred in the past, we must dismiss his work.

My first comment would be that the fact that Hansen did not solve the problem in 'full generality' (e.g. in consideration of all possible continental configurations) does not nullify the value of his work. One would have to show that other configurations could not result in a slower movement of the moon away fromt he earth.

I would also note that at one time the earth did have one continent, and that it was located near to the equator, although not stretched along it.


At any rate, it is easy to give a contrary answer. It is harder to give a valid and truthful answer. The site cited does not seem to do a very good job of refuting the talkorigins article at all.

[louis]

I would ask you to do a simple experiment.
Take any spherical object, and spin it.
In the future, does it still maintain the same spin as it had when you first
acted upon it?
It won't. It will slow down due to opposing forces (friction etc.), or may even speed up a bit (due to the wind or something else).
What this can tell you is that all things don't happen at a constant
rate. They may slow down, or speed up, or both, as a function of time, as observed.