Guest Babylonian Dream Posted October 22, 2012 Share Posted October 22, 2012 The distance for Earth to the Sun varies with about 3-5% (IIRC), and I think it's about the same for the Moon. It's not like we're at a fixed distance. But with that being said, yes, if we were to be much closer than our closest, we'd be in trouble, and if we'd be much far away, the same thing. But I suspect there are more fudge-factor than the religious "absolutists" want it to be. Well not necessarily, both Mars and Venus are in the habitable zone. Both probably had liquid water at one point on their surface and both have an atmosphere and things that would've been there that would've made life possible. It was volcanism on Venus that caused it to get the runaway greenhouse effect and boil over. And on Mars, well the insides of the planet cooled in a way that will eventually happen to earth, so the planet now inactive, has frozen oceans and its not clear than any life has survived. Though yeah it's a small habitable zone, but compared to it, our planets are tiny, so 3 of them fit well inside. Though other habitable zones may exist on the moons of the gas giants as well, let's not forget that. All I am saying is that the YEC and other creationists grossly exaggerate how small the habitable zone is, and how many planets can fit in it, and cherrypick what astronomers say with regards to it to make it seem like the odds of a planet in the habitable zone are slim to none. The reality is, there are probably solar systems with more planets in the habitable zone. And at one point in our solar system, there were. But Earth and Venus crashed into most of them. And some of the debris from them created our moon. A few days ago, I read in another forum (Happy Atheist, I think) about the "Goldilocks (habitable) zone". Someone said that there was enough room in this zone for two Earth-like planets supporting the same kind of life and conditions we have on this planet. Then someone else said that if that had happened, "We could kick their asses and steal their stuff." When it was pointed out that THEY could also kick our asses and steal our stuff, there was unanimous agreement that things had worked out for the best after all. Sad thing is,,, what drove them to say that is the very thing that drove us around the world and drove us out of nearextinction.... Once thing that makes us worse than Chimpanzees, we have an insatiable appetite for more money, land, etc... Yet I doubt they realize that. That drive is the same one that may make uninhabitable planets well beyond the habitable zone, habitable. Truth is, yeah. It seems other solar systems can have planets that crowd the sun more. What we're probably not seeing, are planets a little farther in their orbits. The distances between planets wasn't always as great in our solar system. Many more planets can fit in the spaces, and they did. Hence, how we got our moon. And the habitable zone can range, there are multiple types and areas they can end up in. Just look at Europa, I suspect it might be in a habitable zone for earthlike based life, in a minihabitable zone. There area also other types of life that are still just speculative, that could be beyond that. Perhaps life evolved multiple times on earth, that we just were the ones that survived because we outproduced our competition. We evolved to do this. And has been said, the sheer number of solar systems, the odds are stacked high that life is quite abundant in our galaxy, there must be alot of places with it, even if its rare and there needs to be certain conditions. The odds that those conditions will come into being has been played almost a trillion times over in our own galaxy alone. Keep shooting an arrow, eventually you will hit a bullseye, even if you suck horribly and somehow never learn to get better with experience (this is unlikely, given our evolution though) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
roadrunner Posted October 22, 2012 Share Posted October 22, 2012 LOL! Busted! I so hope all these facebook screenshot are real. I actually heard a YEC argue that b/c the of the moons drifting from us if you backup time the moon would have hit us just a few thousand years ago. Or that the relative sizes of the sun and moon in the sky are the same because of our distance from the sun so they appear to be the same size which make eclipses cool. That is pretty cool. But, because thats the case doesnt mean that someone isnt allowed to lie. edit: (for clarification) because the sun and the moon are the same size, there must be a god, therefore, women must be submissive. First cause and complexity arguments carry no weight to religion. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bornagainathiest Posted October 22, 2012 Share Posted October 22, 2012 Oh shuggles! I shouldn't be surprised or dismayed by this kind of wilful ignorance any more... but I am. More fool me! What's the statistic? One in five Americans thinks the Sun goes around the Earth?. . . (Shuffles the patriotic card to the top of the deck and plays it.) . . . You'd think that if these flag-waving Bible-toters really are as patriotic as they claim, they'd be proud of what the U.S. has done in space, wouldn't you? They'd be taking pride in American ingenuity, technical brilliance and sheer hard work, if they were real patriots, wouldn't they? They'd stand behind NASA and it's achievements at every opportunity, if they were real patriots, wouldn't they? . . . But, of course, the answers to the above are, No, No and No. GAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!!! Sometimes this country drives me nuts! BAA Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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