Science Geekery!

[Just Some Girl]

Yeah, I'm not very smart, eh? 'S'alright, that's cool...

Aw come on, I'm kidding!  Gee, I really didn't want to come across that way.    If I did, I'm sorry!  

You didn't. I was just being an ass, as usual.

[Just Some Girl]

Wait! I'm posting in the SCIENCE GEEKERY Isles?!! That explains everything.

(runs away)

[matthew]

Basics Of Creation Versus Evolution
An overview of the issues involved in the creation versus evolution controversy Version 2.0

Jason D. Browning
B.S., M.S., Computer Science

This presentation gives an overview of the basic issues surrounding the creation versus evolution controversy. It should take about one to two hours to give this presentation, or to read through the talk if the notes for each slide are read. The material is suitable for high school age or older. Speakers should have a good basic understanding of creation/evolution topics.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Jason Browning holds a Master of Science degree in Computer Science from the University of Connecticut. He has studied creation/evolution issues since 1984, and gives talks locally (in New Jersey) on the subject. He is webmaster of the "Creation Science" web site at http://mall.turnpike.net/C/cs. He is a member of the Creation Research Society.

Er...Computer Science?


"* No one, including creation scientists, disputes that so-called "micro-evolution" (variation within a type of organism) caused by natural selection occurs and is responsible for the large number of species (non-interbreeding groups) found within a type. Almost all touted evidences for evolution are of this category (like the "peppered moth" example).
    * Large scale change of one type of organism into another (e.g. cat to dog), so-called "macro-evolution", is beyond the ability of mutation coupled with natural selection to produce. Evolutionists acknowledge this is a "research issue".
    * The "geologic column", which is cited as physical evidence of evolution occurring in the past, is better explained as the result of a devastating global flood which happened about 5,000 years ago, as described in the Bible.
    * The belief that the residual atoms of a "Big Bang" eventually produced people ALL BY THEMSELVES is scientifically inconsistent with the well-proven Second Law of Thermodynamics, and the fundamentals of Information Theory. This idea is much more a "religious belief" than a scientific fact.
    * There is no reason not to believe that God created our universe, earth, plants, animals, and people just as described in the book of Genesis."

And...is there any reason to believe a book that has talking snakes in it?

Apparently

[matthew]

Part of the larger Creation Science Home Page

[Doctor Rock]

Part of the larger Creation Science Home Page

What is this shit doing in the Science geekery pages?  

If you wanna show this hokum, you should create a thread dedicated to bullshit.  

[Sabamah]

Part of the larger Creation Science Home Page

What is this shit doing in the Science geekery pages?  

If you wanna show this hokum, you should create a thread dedicated to bullshit.  

that's called the "main isles"

[Doctor Rock]

Part of the larger Creation Science Home Page

What is this shit doing in the Science geekery pages?  

If you wanna show this hokum, you should create a thread dedicated to bullshit.  

that's called the "main isles"

Right!

[matthew]

Astronomers struggle to define 'planet'

By ALICIA CHANG, AP Science Writer Sun Aug 13, 5:48 PM ET

LOS ANGELES - Our solar system is suffering an identity crisis. For decades, it has consisted of nine planets, even as scientists debated whether Pluto really belonged. Then the recent discovery of an object larger and farther away than Pluto threatened to throw this slice of the cosmos into chaos.

Should this newly found icy rock known as "2003 UB313" become the 10th planet? Should Pluto be demoted? And what exactly is a planet, anyway?

Ancient cultures regularly revised their answer to the last question and present-day scientists aren't much better off: There still is no universal definition of "planet."

That all could soon change, and with it science textbooks around this planet.

At a 12-day conference beginning Monday, scientists will conduct a galactic census of sorts. Among the possibilities at the meeting of the International Astronomical Union in the Czech Republic capital of Prague: Subtract Pluto or christen one more planet, and possibly dozens more.

"It's time we have a definition," said Alan Stern, who heads the Colorado-based space science division of the Southwest Research Institute of San Antonio. "It's embarrassing to the public that we as astronomers don't have one."

The debate intensified last summer when astronomer Michael Brown of the California Institute of Technology announced the discovery of a celestial object larger than Pluto. Like Pluto, it is a member of the Kuiper Belt, a mysterious disc-shaped zone beyond Neptune containing thousands of comets and planetary objects. (Brown nicknamed his find "Xena" after a warrior heroine in a cheesy TV series; pending a formal name, it remains 2003 UB313.)

The
Hubble Space Telescope measured the bright, rocky object at about 1,490 miles in diameter, roughly 70 miles longer than Pluto. At 9 billion miles from the sun, it is the farthest known object in the solar system.

The discovery stoked the planet debate that had been simmering since Pluto was spotted in 1930.

Some argue that if Pluto kept its crown, Xena should be the 10th planet by default — it is, after all, bigger. Purists maintain that there are only eight traditional planets, and insist Pluto and Xena are poseurs.

"Life would be simpler if we went back to eight planets," said Brian Marsden, director of the astronomical union's Minor Planet Center in Cambridge, Mass.

Still others suggest a compromise that would divide planets into categories based on composition, similar to the way stars and galaxies are classified. Jupiter could be labeled a "gas giant planet," while Pluto and Xena could be "ice dwarf planets."

"Pluto is not worthy of being called just a plain planet," said Alan Boss, an astrophysicist at the Carnegie Institution in Washington, D.C. "But it's perfectly fine as an ice dwarf planet or a historical planet."

The number of recognized planets in the solar system has seesawed based on new findings. Ceres was initially classified as a planet in the 1800s, but was demoted to an asteroid when similar objects were found nearby.

Despite the lack of scientific consensus on what makes a planet, the current nine — and Xena — share common traits: They orbit the sun. Gravity is responsible for their round shape. And they were not formed by the same process that created stars.

Brown, Xena's discoverer, admits to being "agnostic" about what the international conference decides. He said he could live with eight planets, but is against sticking with the status quo and would feel a little guilty if Xena gained planethood because of the controversy surrounding Pluto.

"If UB313 is declared to be the 10th planet, I will always feel like it was a little bit of a fraud," Brown said.

For years, Pluto's inclusion in the solar system has been controversial. Astronomers thought it was the same size as Earth, but later found it was smaller than Earth's moon. Pluto is also odd in other ways: With its elongated orbit and funky orbital plane, it acts more like other Kuiper Belt objects than traditional planets.

Even so, Pluto remained No. 9 because it was the only known object in the Kuiper Belt at the time.

When new observations in the 1990s confirmed that the Kuiper Belt was sprinkled with numerous bodies similar to Pluto, some scientists piped up. In 1999, the international union took the unusual step of releasing a public statement denying rumors that the ninth rock from the sun might be kicked out.

That hasn't stopped groups from attacking Pluto's planethood. In 2001, the Hayden Planetarium at New York's American Museum of Natural History unleashed an uproar when it excluded Pluto as a planet in its solar system gallery.

Earlier this year,
NASA's New Horizons spacecraft began a 9 1/2-year journey to Pluto on a mission that scientists hope will reveal more about the oddball object.

The trick for astronomers meeting in Prague is to set a criterion that makes sense scientifically. Should planets be grouped by location, size or another marker? If planets are defined by their size, should they be bigger than Pluto or another arbitrary size? The latter could expand the solar system to 23, 39 or even 53 planets.

It's not an academic exercise — the public may not be open to a flood of new planets. Despite their differences, scientists agree any definition should be flexible enough to accommodate new discoveries.

"Science progresses," said Boss of the Carnegie Institution. "Science is not something that's engraved on a steel tablet never to be changed."

[attachment deleted by admin... had to make some room, kids]

[Doctor Rock]

I say kick Pluto out.  It's a Kuiper belt object.  If Pluto is a planet, then so are Vesta and Ceres (really big asteroids in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter)...

Who's with me?  

[Tripp]

You'll have the aid of my shteel ! !

[matthew]

he is slainth

[attachment deleted by admin... had to make some room, kids]

[bebopbalogna]

    * There is no reason not to believe that God created our universe, earth, plants, animals, and people just as described in the book of Genesis."[/i]

can they really be serious?


Day One

   1. Watery, formless planet Earth suspended in the darkness and void of space (no stars, no sun, no moon, no planets - except for Earth).
   2. Light.
   3. Separation of light from the darkness - and the first indication that the planet is rotating (day and night cycle produced).


Day Four

   9. Sun
  10. Moon - complete with established orbit so as to mark passage of time (months, seasons, and years).
  11. Stars and other planets.





so are we to believe that night and day existed  three "days" before the sun was created?  ummm,  somehow i don't think that would work.  even in the little creation day 1-7 pictures,  day one shows a star as the light source.  regardless of whether or not you believe in the existence of a "god/creator/great spirit/etc.etc." to take biblical creation literally is fuckin retarded.  borderline insanity.   take that back.  complete insanity.

[bebopbalogna]

interesting finds

[bebopbalogna]

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/gMdrJHN-y8k" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/gMdrJHN-y8k</a>

[Doctor Rock]

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/gMdrJHN-y8k" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/gMdrJHN-y8k</a>

I really hate that song.