sentientsynth
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Cool. You can listen online, like I do, at www.oneplace.com/ministries/bible_answer_man. The shows are archived for about a week or so. There are other awesome ministries on this websight too.
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- Thread starter ThePhy
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sentientsynth
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Whoa, you stumped BAM!!! You realize, of course, that I must hear that question. Please remember. If you tell me the question, I promise to no longer call you The Foolish Galatian.
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One Eyed Jack
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If you read ThePhy's posts carefully, you'll notice he's not talking about a rotating cloud of dust. He's leaving out a part that we all take for granted in the hopes that we won't notice it, and then tries to trip us up with trick questions. Not very honest, if you ask me.
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No, OEJ. I hope I never have to resort to the type of deception you accuse me of, and If I do, I would hope someone would point it out.One Eyed Jack said:
In my OP I tried to include the level of detail needed to support my claims, and to avoid excessive details that were not germane to the points I made. Indeed I did not specifically mention the rotation you refer to, but I felt that was implicit in the context.
I note that in place of countering the specific points I made, you simply accuse me of a type of dishonesty. What do you see in my not talking about the rotation of the original cloud gives me some leeway to distort what Enyart was saying? What part of what I said is thereby falsified?
In my OP I asked Enyart (and I extend the invitation to the readers and you) to show either from a reliable written source or a physicist where Enyart’s claims relative to angular momentum dictating Venus’s spin are true. I invite you - OEJ - to record the BEL program I referenced, take it and my OP to a competent person - say a faithful Christian astrophysicist - and ask them to respond in writing as to whether it is I or Enyart that is misrepresenting the involved principles. Post their response here. Deal?
From the "Ask the Astronomer" website:
Why does Venus rotate backwards from the other planets?
The rotation period of Venus cannot be decided through telescopic observations of its surface markings because its featureless thick atmosphere makes this impossible. In the 1960's, radar pulses were bounced off of Venus while at its closest distance to the Earth, and it was discovered that its rotation period, its day, was 243.09 +/- 0.18 earth days long, but it rotated on its axis in a backwards or retrograde sense from the other planets. If you were to look down at the plane of the solar system from its 'north pole' you would see the planets orbiting the Sun counter clockwise, and rotating on their axis counterclockwise. Except for Venus. Venus would be rotating clockwise as it orbited the Sun counterclockwise. Venus is not alone. The axis of Uranus is inclined so far towards the plane of the solar system that it almost rolls on its side as it orbits the Sun.
What accounts for the extreme inclinations of the rotation axis of Venus and Uranus? For years it was thought that in the case of Venus that the Earth was the culprit. It is a curious fact that as Venus rotates three times on its axis in 729.27 days, the Earth goes twice around the Sun ( 728.50 days) This has suggested to many dynamicists that Earth and Venus are locked into a 3:2 tidal resonance. There are many bodies in the solar system that seem to be locked into various kinds of spin-orbit resonances, especially families of asteroids with the planet Jupiter. Mercury also seems to be gravitationally locked into some kind of resonance with the Sun since its day (58.646 days) and its year ( 87.969 days) are also in the proportion of 3:2.
Forces acting on spinning bodies result in some peculiar acrobatics. For instance, if you take a spinning top and give it a push, it will begin to wobble in a manner called precession. The axis of the Earth makes a 26,000 year wobble with an amplitude of tens of degrees. This is all due to the influence of the Moon's tidal attraction of the Earth. In the case of Venus, however, the gentle gravitational forces it may receive over billions of years to place it in a 3:2 resonance with the Earth don't seem to be strong enough to tip the entire planet over to make its rotation retrograde.
The best, current, ideas still favor some dramatic event that occurred while Venus ( and Uranus for that matter) were being formed. It is known from the cratering evidence we see on a variety of planetary surfaces, that soon after the planets were formed, there were still some might large mini-planets orbiting the Sun. One of these may have collided with the Earth, dredging up material that later solidified into our Moon. The satellites of the outer planets are probably representitives of this ancient population of bodies. Venus may have experienced an encounter with one of these large bodies in which, unlike for the Earth, the material didn't form a separate moon, but was absorbed into the body of Venus. In addition to mass and kinetic energy, this body would also have contributed angular momentum. The result is that the new spin direction and speed for Venus was seriously altered from its initial state which could have been very Earth-like. Today, the result of that last, ancient collision is Venus with a retrograde rotation.
This theory may also apply to Uranus provided that the collision happened before the 15 satellites themselves were captured or formed. Their orbital planes look very uniform and show no evidence for a dramatic gravitational event such as a collision. It may be, too, that the Uranian collision event dredged up matter and flung it into orbit around Uranus, and out of this were formed the larger moons of Uranus.
This is, clearly, a complicated and not well understood phenomenon. The facts for Venus point towards a collision event to put its axis and rotation in the retrograde sense. The tidal action of the Earth on Venus, acting steadily over billions of years, then established the 3:2 spin-orbit resonance. Every 2 earth years, the exact same portion of the Venerian ( Cytherian) surface faces Earth. Could there be some sub- surface concentration of mass on this portion of Venus that the Earth can grab onto to create the tidal lock? Stay tuned!!!
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It is apparent from the above answer that unless some outside effect occurred subsequent to planetary formation that Venus should be rotating the same as the other planets. In my view this vindicates the Enyart position that all the planets should logically have the same rotational direction (his reasoning was perhaps a bit strange).
Of course if one is committed to a naturalistic explanation for the Venus oddity then the idea that a collision reversed its original direction of rotation would be one possibility. Another would be Velikovski's idea that Venus was captured after some "billiard ball" encounters with other planets.
The fact is of course that nobody really knows.
Why does Venus rotate backwards from the other planets?
The rotation period of Venus cannot be decided through telescopic observations of its surface markings because its featureless thick atmosphere makes this impossible. In the 1960's, radar pulses were bounced off of Venus while at its closest distance to the Earth, and it was discovered that its rotation period, its day, was 243.09 +/- 0.18 earth days long, but it rotated on its axis in a backwards or retrograde sense from the other planets. If you were to look down at the plane of the solar system from its 'north pole' you would see the planets orbiting the Sun counter clockwise, and rotating on their axis counterclockwise. Except for Venus. Venus would be rotating clockwise as it orbited the Sun counterclockwise. Venus is not alone. The axis of Uranus is inclined so far towards the plane of the solar system that it almost rolls on its side as it orbits the Sun.
What accounts for the extreme inclinations of the rotation axis of Venus and Uranus? For years it was thought that in the case of Venus that the Earth was the culprit. It is a curious fact that as Venus rotates three times on its axis in 729.27 days, the Earth goes twice around the Sun ( 728.50 days) This has suggested to many dynamicists that Earth and Venus are locked into a 3:2 tidal resonance. There are many bodies in the solar system that seem to be locked into various kinds of spin-orbit resonances, especially families of asteroids with the planet Jupiter. Mercury also seems to be gravitationally locked into some kind of resonance with the Sun since its day (58.646 days) and its year ( 87.969 days) are also in the proportion of 3:2.
Forces acting on spinning bodies result in some peculiar acrobatics. For instance, if you take a spinning top and give it a push, it will begin to wobble in a manner called precession. The axis of the Earth makes a 26,000 year wobble with an amplitude of tens of degrees. This is all due to the influence of the Moon's tidal attraction of the Earth. In the case of Venus, however, the gentle gravitational forces it may receive over billions of years to place it in a 3:2 resonance with the Earth don't seem to be strong enough to tip the entire planet over to make its rotation retrograde.
The best, current, ideas still favor some dramatic event that occurred while Venus ( and Uranus for that matter) were being formed. It is known from the cratering evidence we see on a variety of planetary surfaces, that soon after the planets were formed, there were still some might large mini-planets orbiting the Sun. One of these may have collided with the Earth, dredging up material that later solidified into our Moon. The satellites of the outer planets are probably representitives of this ancient population of bodies. Venus may have experienced an encounter with one of these large bodies in which, unlike for the Earth, the material didn't form a separate moon, but was absorbed into the body of Venus. In addition to mass and kinetic energy, this body would also have contributed angular momentum. The result is that the new spin direction and speed for Venus was seriously altered from its initial state which could have been very Earth-like. Today, the result of that last, ancient collision is Venus with a retrograde rotation.
This theory may also apply to Uranus provided that the collision happened before the 15 satellites themselves were captured or formed. Their orbital planes look very uniform and show no evidence for a dramatic gravitational event such as a collision. It may be, too, that the Uranian collision event dredged up matter and flung it into orbit around Uranus, and out of this were formed the larger moons of Uranus.
This is, clearly, a complicated and not well understood phenomenon. The facts for Venus point towards a collision event to put its axis and rotation in the retrograde sense. The tidal action of the Earth on Venus, acting steadily over billions of years, then established the 3:2 spin-orbit resonance. Every 2 earth years, the exact same portion of the Venerian ( Cytherian) surface faces Earth. Could there be some sub- surface concentration of mass on this portion of Venus that the Earth can grab onto to create the tidal lock? Stay tuned!!!
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It is apparent from the above answer that unless some outside effect occurred subsequent to planetary formation that Venus should be rotating the same as the other planets. In my view this vindicates the Enyart position that all the planets should logically have the same rotational direction (his reasoning was perhaps a bit strange).
Of course if one is committed to a naturalistic explanation for the Venus oddity then the idea that a collision reversed its original direction of rotation would be one possibility. Another would be Velikovski's idea that Venus was captured after some "billiard ball" encounters with other planets.
The fact is of course that nobody really knows.
Thank you, bob b, for confirming many of the details in my OP. Things like tidal locking as having a significant role, and the possibility of a primordial impact affecting Venus’s spin.
Meanwhile I will wait for a response from someone with a bit more knowledge on the subject than a fading ex-systems engineer with at best a high-school level of physics understanding. Why don’t you help OEJ out and find someone who is competent in physics and spiritually in agreement with Christianity to show that Enyart was right?
Quite an important “unless” you slipped in there, considering that every body in the solar system that is not subject to surface erosion shows that numerous impacts, some of them massive, are the rule, not the exception.
it’s too bad your view is not even a sad parody of what Enyart actually said. If you are driven to that level of intellectual prostitution then I feel for you.
Meanwhile I will wait for a response from someone with a bit more knowledge on the subject than a fading ex-systems engineer with at best a high-school level of physics understanding. Why don’t you help OEJ out and find someone who is competent in physics and spiritually in agreement with Christianity to show that Enyart was right?
I’m not sure this is the right place to dive into the necessary math, but the calculus needed to compute the moment of inertia of the earth is not very advanced. In fact, that was one of the issues I had in the back of my mind when I responded to your earlier question and talked about the 1000 mph speed of the earth’s rotation. In fact only the equator has that speed, and all other points on the earth are traveling slower by virtue of the earth’s rotation. These factors are what computing the movement of inertial of a body accounts for. My simplification was on the side of maximizing the rotation energy, so using the true moment would make the difference between the linear and angular energies even more pronounced.sentientsynth said:
I eagerly await the announcement of the Nobel Prize that you would unquestionably garner. There are fascinating issues in each of those fields that are occupying the attentions of numerous researchers. But most scientists are confident the overall understanding is in place, and the details are the focus now.
What you are giving is just the argument from incredulity. It is all so fantastically (add a few more superlatives if you are bob b) complicated that it couldn’t have happened naturally. Just what any person from 200 years ago would say about our technological world. I find most scientists, rather than pre-emptively wanting to say “God did it” when considering the vast realms of the unknown, instead see an opportunity for immense progress in our understanding.
Which can be never. For the majority of scientists, the evidence has long been available which shows the earth is very old. If you demand a personal standard of proof high enough then you need never fear having to believe in an old earth. Others use that same line of reasoning to show the fallacy in thinking that the earth is round, or that man has visited the moon, or that metal machines can fly, or that you can see and talk to people on the other side of the world, or anything else they want to disbelieve. If you can look yourself in the mirror without any hidden qualms that you are trying to avoid having to believe in something you dislike, then more power to you.
Doubt and uncertainty and questioning are permissible. Lies are not. So whatever you choose to believe, just do not lower yourself to distorting science like is done by a particular pastor.
sentientsynth
New member
ThePhy,
Thanks for your thoughtful reply.
Would I, in your opinion, be a second rate theist if I wanted to understand the mechanism of soil nitrogen fixation? Would I be inconsistent if I learned the mechanisms of the universe solely because God created them? If a professor answers a certain question with "Because that's just the way things are," is that a better answer than "This is the way God designed it to function,"?
Albert Einstein said that he wanted to think "God's thoughts"; everything else is just "details". Would you accuse him of not "considering the vast realms of the unknown"? Of course you wouldn't. The motivation of the man who revolutionized how we see the universe was to know God.
As humans, we're naturally curious and want to know why. And we would be foolish to believe that there is no cause for some effect.
So if I acknowledge God Almighty as the creator of all that exists, why am I precluded from investigating cell biology or soil chemistry? Is a man dishonest for seeing God in everything? And if by his love for God, a man is all the more zealous for intimate knowledge of His creation, by whom shall this honest man be judged? And what will be his judgement?
But if we're dishonest and we repress the truth then we are guilty, our conscience bearing witness against us, if we are willing to hear it. Only when I've openly appraised all the evidence that is before me and come to an honest decision is my conscience clean.
Concerning the Creator, my conscience is clean.
Concerning the science of the creation, my mind is open and curious; my conscience is clean. If I say to you, "I do not find sufficient evidence to warrant belief in a single common ancestor to all life," and my integrity hasn't been compromised, my conscience not accusing me, why do you judge my intentions, asserting that I and many others who also affirm this have been intellectually dishonest and/or lack the even the ability to discern the evidence.
If I accept arguments against, say, chemical evolution such as the irreducible, specified complexity of biological cell, and am soundly convinced beyond a reasonable doubt, how am I working to suppress knowledge? Only if I censure evidence am I suppressing knowledge. My conscience is clean.
Haven't I openly discussed with you questions I have about Venus's retrograde rotation? Didn't I concede that in my estimation it does not falsify the possibility of an old universe? It is not dishonest for me to maintain my original position when the evidence does not plainly falsify my position.
Perhaps, then, you take issue with me taking a Young Earth stance by default. I'll do my best to explain.
If you're lost in the woods, having a compass may save your life. If you've been properly trained, you have an excellent chance of survival. But what does someone do when they realize that all life is futility and all goals are like striving after wind? I was convinced of this truth: that all things would return to the nothing from which they meaningless came. And I lived my life this way: that the world and everthing in it wasn't fit for honor, least of all humankind.
Except....perhaps....Jesus. He was the lone figure who to me represented something that was good and honorable. But it was only a foggy notion. I had never read the His words for myself. I had heard the cliches since I could remember, but I'd never taken up a Bible and seen what Jesus said and did for myself.
Jesus said that all who are heavy laden find rest in Him. He said that I was made in the image of God, that God loved me and wanted a relationship with me, and that I would spend all of eternity with Him where there will be no more pain.
Jesus's words turned my world upside down. I struggled against accepting Him for a time, but the more I read his word, the more all of my being testified His case against me, until the day came that I believed Him and bent my knee to His authority.
The truth that is Christ is the foundation of my life. I am more sure of Him than I am of anything else. He is more real to me than the flesh on my bones.
And having accepted Him as Lord over my life, I accept that everything He says is true. He is God and the Bible is His Word.
"In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth."
"For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day:..." Exodus 20:11
As far as I can tell, the Bible is speaking in plain terms about six 24 hr periods. I could be wrong, but it's plain enough to me. And from other sections of scripture, we can deduce that God created the universe about six thousand years ago. This seems to me to be the plain reading of scripture. Therefore I accept it on the authority of Jesus Christ.
And as I said before, if I honestly appraise the evidence and am not convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that my position is falsified, then my conscience will not accuse me. In this I judge and am convinced of myself, no other man being able to discern my thoughts or conscience.
Yours Truly,
the Sentient Synthesizer
Thanks for your thoughtful reply.
Phy, why ought there be a boundary isolating an opportunity for inquiry from the question of absolute origin? Isn't it highly unimaginative, uninquisitive, indeed completely un-human to not seek to understand what we do not yet understand? In what way does my affirmation of "In the beginning, God..." conflict with an impulse to acquire knowledge?ThePhy said:
Would I, in your opinion, be a second rate theist if I wanted to understand the mechanism of soil nitrogen fixation? Would I be inconsistent if I learned the mechanisms of the universe solely because God created them? If a professor answers a certain question with "Because that's just the way things are," is that a better answer than "This is the way God designed it to function,"?
Albert Einstein said that he wanted to think "God's thoughts"; everything else is just "details". Would you accuse him of not "considering the vast realms of the unknown"? Of course you wouldn't. The motivation of the man who revolutionized how we see the universe was to know God.
As humans, we're naturally curious and want to know why. And we would be foolish to believe that there is no cause for some effect.
So if I acknowledge God Almighty as the creator of all that exists, why am I precluded from investigating cell biology or soil chemistry? Is a man dishonest for seeing God in everything? And if by his love for God, a man is all the more zealous for intimate knowledge of His creation, by whom shall this honest man be judged? And what will be his judgement?
But if we're dishonest and we repress the truth then we are guilty, our conscience bearing witness against us, if we are willing to hear it. Only when I've openly appraised all the evidence that is before me and come to an honest decision is my conscience clean.
Concerning the Creator, my conscience is clean.
Concerning the science of the creation, my mind is open and curious; my conscience is clean. If I say to you, "I do not find sufficient evidence to warrant belief in a single common ancestor to all life," and my integrity hasn't been compromised, my conscience not accusing me, why do you judge my intentions, asserting that I and many others who also affirm this have been intellectually dishonest and/or lack the even the ability to discern the evidence.
If I accept arguments against, say, chemical evolution such as the irreducible, specified complexity of biological cell, and am soundly convinced beyond a reasonable doubt, how am I working to suppress knowledge? Only if I censure evidence am I suppressing knowledge. My conscience is clean.
Haven't I openly discussed with you questions I have about Venus's retrograde rotation? Didn't I concede that in my estimation it does not falsify the possibility of an old universe? It is not dishonest for me to maintain my original position when the evidence does not plainly falsify my position.
Perhaps, then, you take issue with me taking a Young Earth stance by default. I'll do my best to explain.
If you're lost in the woods, having a compass may save your life. If you've been properly trained, you have an excellent chance of survival. But what does someone do when they realize that all life is futility and all goals are like striving after wind? I was convinced of this truth: that all things would return to the nothing from which they meaningless came. And I lived my life this way: that the world and everthing in it wasn't fit for honor, least of all humankind.
Except....perhaps....Jesus. He was the lone figure who to me represented something that was good and honorable. But it was only a foggy notion. I had never read the His words for myself. I had heard the cliches since I could remember, but I'd never taken up a Bible and seen what Jesus said and did for myself.
Jesus said that all who are heavy laden find rest in Him. He said that I was made in the image of God, that God loved me and wanted a relationship with me, and that I would spend all of eternity with Him where there will be no more pain.
Jesus's words turned my world upside down. I struggled against accepting Him for a time, but the more I read his word, the more all of my being testified His case against me, until the day came that I believed Him and bent my knee to His authority.
The truth that is Christ is the foundation of my life. I am more sure of Him than I am of anything else. He is more real to me than the flesh on my bones.
And having accepted Him as Lord over my life, I accept that everything He says is true. He is God and the Bible is His Word.
"In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth."
"For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day:..." Exodus 20:11
As far as I can tell, the Bible is speaking in plain terms about six 24 hr periods. I could be wrong, but it's plain enough to me. And from other sections of scripture, we can deduce that God created the universe about six thousand years ago. This seems to me to be the plain reading of scripture. Therefore I accept it on the authority of Jesus Christ.
And as I said before, if I honestly appraise the evidence and am not convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that my position is falsified, then my conscience will not accuse me. In this I judge and am convinced of myself, no other man being able to discern my thoughts or conscience.
Yours Truly,
the Sentient Synthesizer
The academic preparation needed for employment as an engineer, as you were, in most respectable companies includes at least elementary calculus. That level of mathematical understanding is adequate to do some rough calculations as to what size, speed, off-center distance, etc. would be needed for an impacting body to give Venus the spin we see. Have you bothered to do such?bob b said:
I don’t know about a “better” explanation, since you haven’t provided anything but vague charges as to the deficiencies in the impact hypothesis. But it may well be that another natural explanation will be forthcoming. Should that happen, that will equally put the lie to Enyart’s grotesque misconstrual of the law of the conservation of angular momentum.
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One Eyed Jack
New member
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From ThePhy (previouisly):
All your article says is the spin is due to the original angular momentum, and says nothing about any individual planet having to spin in a particular direction or speed. Read the article carefully, and you will see that it discusses centrifugal and centripetal forces and some related items, but nowhere says the spin of any planet is constrained to values other than are dictated by those forces. And then it says:
And some icing for bob b’s benefit, your author pointedly holds to the idea that bob b regularly says is wrong – that solar systems condense from nebular clouds. I appreciate you fumbling the ball and allowing me to pick it up on your 1 yard line, OEJ.
OEJ responded with:
and provided the following link in which it said:
Thanks OEJ, good link. The material there is directed at a non-scientific audience, and therefore necessarily is presented in a very simplified form. Even so, there is nothing in that article that contradicts what I said. I said the following two specific items were not constrained by conservation of angular momentum – 1) the direction of the spin of any specific planet, and 2) the rate of the spin of any specific planet.
All your article says is the spin is due to the original angular momentum, and says nothing about any individual planet having to spin in a particular direction or speed. Read the article carefully, and you will see that it discusses centrifugal and centripetal forces and some related items, but nowhere says the spin of any planet is constrained to values other than are dictated by those forces. And then it says:
So all in all, I appreciate you finding an independent authority that backs my side. As further proof, I recommend you follow some of the links in your article. One link is directly to an accompanying article in which it talks about Venus’s retrograde spin. Most strange that your author would talk about that in a link directly from the article on angular momentum, if that law said Venus couldn’t spin the way it is.
And some icing for bob b’s benefit, your author pointedly holds to the idea that bob b regularly says is wrong – that solar systems condense from nebular clouds. I appreciate you fumbling the ball and allowing me to pick it up on your 1 yard line, OEJ.
The "author" holds to the "best of the lot". I don't blame him for that. Nor do I blame you for your unswerving faith in materialistic origins. After all, that is what is taught in our society these days.
As far as your statement:
Either you are being purposely deceptive or you are not as well informed as most here have previously been led to believe.
As far as your statement:
(Emphasis added.)
Either you are being purposely deceptive or you are not as well informed as most here have previously been led to believe.
One Eyed Jack
New member
ThePhy said:
You're welcome.
So -- is it right or wrong?
The planets are supposed to spin in the same direction as the dust-cloud was (supposedly) spinning. At least, according to the Law of Conservation of Angular Momentum. You can deny this all you want, but then you're just doing the very thing that you accuse creationists of doing -- ignoring science.
I have. Here's an interesting little snippet from one of them.
Why would this be expected?
ThePhy said:
Apparently, he also holds to an idea that you say is wrong.
From OEJ:
If there are no significant interactions between the condensing bodies, yes they will all rotate in the same direction, both in their orbits and in their spin. But as soon as they start interacting with each other, they can trade angular momentum. Look at the craters on the moon and planets and tell me they have not interacted with each other.
As a broad description for a general audience, I think it is fine.
You won’t mind if I try to dictate what exact Biblical doctrine on some fine point is based on a 1 or 2 page summary of the teachings of the Bible, would you? After all, why actually read the Bible and learn what it says in depth when I can just whip up a quick answer from some Bible answer man on the internet? That is the way youi handle physics questions.
If there are no significant interactions between the condensing bodies, yes they will all rotate in the same direction, both in their orbits and in their spin. But as soon as they start interacting with each other, they can trade angular momentum. Look at the craters on the moon and planets and tell me they have not interacted with each other.
What makes you say I think that idea is wrong?
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