The Moon Question

[andyp]

I had a brief debate with a christian who is a friend of a friend, on facebook. He claims that because the moon is moving away from us at a certain speed, calculated backwards it only makes it around 1.6 billion years old compared to scientists claim of the solar system being 4.6 billion years old..

 

He claims this 'destroys evolutionists theories'

 

Please help my to reply to this claim.. His link/comment is below:

 

One of the moon missions left a reflector on the surface so that they could take accurate measurements. "The rate [of regression] is inversely proportional to the sixth power of distance" http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/2010/04/23/feedback-the-moons-regression-and-density-waves.

 

http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v14/i4/moon.asp this shows the calculation for mathematicians.

 

A

 

[hereticzero]

I had a brief debate with a christian who is a friend of a friend, on facebook. He claims that because the moon is moving away from us at a certain speed, calculated backwards it only makes it around 1.6 billion years old compared to scientists claim of the solar system being 4.6 billion years old..

 

He claims this 'destroys evolutionists theories'

 

Please help my to reply to this claim.. His link/comment is below:

 

One of the moon missions left a reflector on the surface so that they could take accurate measurements. "The rate [of regression] is inversely proportional to the sixth power of distance" http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/2010/04/23/feedback-the-moons-regression-and-density-waves.

 

http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v14/i4/moon.asp this shows the calculation for mathematicians.

 

A

What's wrong with the moon being 1.6 billion years old? As a creationist, he already failed with his question. Creationists believe everything was created in six days, which puts the moon's actual formation way before the christian god decided to create it. If he points out the moon is only 1.6 billion years old, no matter how he got that figure, it wipes out his argument of a young earth and solar system that, by biblical accounts, would only be 8,000 to 10,000 years old by now, counting Iesus' birth of course! Ask him to go talk to Richard Dawkins about the formation of the moon and see what he has to say about it, or better yet, send an e-mail to astronomy magazine and ask them the age of the moon and when it was formed.

[hereticzero]

BTW: Evolution does not explain, by Darwin's writings, how the earth, moon or life came to exist. Evolution already assumes life is in existence.

[hereticzero]

Rocks brought back from the moon contain zircon crystals. Zircons crystallize only after 80 to 85 percent of a volume of molten rock has solidified. By understanding how uranium within the zirconium breaks down into lead, scientists believe they know when the crystals formed with an error margin of less than 4 million years. The oldest zircons from the moon are about 10 million years older than the oldest yet discovered on Earth. The ages of lunar zircons identified in other studies hint that small amounts of the moon’s crust remained molten for another 200 million to 400 million years.

 

"Alexander Nemchin and his colleagues have used a uranium-lead dating technique to scrutinize a 0.5-millimeter-wide zircon embedded in a moon rock collected by Apollo 17 astronauts in December 1972. The crystal — which, although small, is rather large as zircons go — is about 4.417 billion years old, the researchers report online January 25 in Nature Geoscience."

From: http://www.sciencebuzz.org/blog/how-old-moon

 

If he wants to argue astronomy, then the xtian needs to find an astronomer.

[andyp]

What's wrong with the moon being 1.6 billion years old? As a creationist, he already failed with his question. Creationists believe everything was created in six days, which puts the moon's actual formation way before the christian god decided to create it. If he points out the moon is only 1.6 billion years old, no matter how he got that figure, it wipes out his argument of a young earth and solar system that, by biblical accounts, would only be 8,000 to 10,000 years old by now, counting Iesus' birth of course! Ask him to go talk to Richard Dawkins about the formation of the moon and see what he has to say about it, or better yet, send an e-mail to astronomy magazine and ask them the age of the moon and when it was formed.

 

Just that popular science has it at 4.6 billion years old. This one thinks because of this apparent miscalculation, all others are equally untrustworthy or plain wrong.

 

Not all Christians/creationists subscribe to the view that earth is only a few thousand years old.

[par4dcourse]

It's clealy stated in genesis: "In the beginning, god created the heavens and the earth, except the moon which He had been hiding under his Holy Armpit for a billion or so years."

[Ouroboros]

1. I don't trust creationists when they use math. They can't get most science rigth, so why would they get math right?

 

2. Here's an article about all these miscalculations and assumptions made: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/moonrec.html

 

But, as made clear by Bills & Ray (1999), the constant of proportionality, which Stacey suggests is not constant, is in fact a ratio of factors that represent dissipation, and deformation. It is clear that neither of these can be constant, and once that is understood, we can see clearly that DeYoung simply did the wrong thing right, and curiously wound up with a correct form of the wrong answer.

[Eugene39]

I had a brief debate with a christian who is a friend of a friend, on facebook. He claims that because the moon is moving away from us at a certain speed, calculated backwards it only makes it around 1.6 billion years old compared to scientists claim of the solar system being 4.6 billion years old..

 

The moon is constantly moving closer then farther then closer.... It's called the perigee and apogee cycle. Its movement around the earth is like all the rest of the planets, etc. with an elliptical path. Is he saying that in the past that the moon was just missing the tree tops 1.6 billion years ago?

 

http://www.jgiesen.d...eeDistance.html

 

Edit: Did some reading and it is thought the moon is moving away from us at a rate of 1" per year.

 

 

[par4dcourse]

 

The moon is constantly moving closer then farther then closer.... It's called the perigee and apogee cycle. Its movement around the earth is like all the rest of the planets, etc. with an elliptical path. Is he saying that in the past that the moon was just missing the tree tops 1.6 billion years ago?

 

http://www.jgiesen.d...eeDistance.html

 

 

 

 

I'm curious about that too. And is this creationist saying the bible missed or the 10,000 year lineage traceback deal or what?

 

 

 

[Shion]

I remember watching something on Discovery channel about a theory dating the moon as being younger than the Earth (not because of 'God/Gods', but based on geological evidence, along with the amount of moisture at the moon's poles. I do not remember the whole argument, but the theory was that a large space rock hit the earth many, many millions of years ago, but got trapped in it's gravity and that is what created the moon. Personally I think the moon looks a little too spherical for that theory to jive.

[OpheliaGinger]

I had a brief debate with a christian who is a friend of a friend, on facebook. He claims that because the moon is moving away from us at a certain speed, calculated backwards it only makes it around 1.6 billion years old compared to scientists claim of the solar system being 4.6 billion years old..

 

The moon is constantly moving closer then farther then closer.... It's called the perigee and apogee cycle. Its movement around the earth is like all the rest of the planets, etc. with an elliptical path. Is he saying that in the past that the moon was just missing the tree tops 1.6 billion years ago?

 

http://www.jgiesen.d...eeDistance.html

 

Edit: Did some reading and it is thought the moon is moving away from us at a rate of 1" per year.

 

This. The moon won't just fling off into space because the earth's gravitational pull is much greater due to its size. This illustrates why a smaller object sticks to the larger:

 

 

[andyp]

I had a brief debate with a christian who is a friend of a friend, on facebook. He claims that because the moon is moving away from us at a certain speed, calculated backwards it only makes it around 1.6 billion years old compared to scientists claim of the solar system being 4.6 billion years old..

 

The moon is constantly moving closer then farther then closer.... It's called the perigee and apogee cycle. Its movement around the earth is like all the rest of the planets, etc. with an elliptical path. Is he saying that in the past that the moon was just missing the tree tops 1.6 billion years ago?

 

http://www.jgiesen.d...eeDistance.html

 

Edit: Did some reading and it is thought the moon is moving away from us at a rate of 1" per year.

 

 

 

Yes I think he was suggesting god put the moon into orbit about touching distance 1.6 billion years ago

 

Thing is I couldn't have an extended debate as my born again sister who I've not quite broken the full news of my atheism to would have become aware of the whole thing as it was viewable by her & she knows them all anyhoo. Still I copied & pasted the exchange out of FB: bear in mind I'd never 'spoken' to this guy before

 

...

 

Me: Well the dinos had a good innings, now it's our turn.. though I suspect we won't last as long :{

 

C: That depends on how old the earth is, and mathematically the moon can't be older than 1.4 billion years due to the rate at which it is regressing from the earth

Me: Apparently its moving away from us at the same rate as our fingernails grow.

 

C: 3.78cm per year I believe. One of the moon missions left a reflector on the surface so that they could take accurate measurements. "The rate [of regression] is inversely proportional to the sixth power of distance" http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/2010/04/23/feedback-the-moons-regression-and-density-waves. I found a better page recently I can't find it right now..

Got it - http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v14/i4/moon.asp this shows the calculation for mathematicians.

 

Me: ...and creationists

 

C: ...and it shocks evolutionists to see that the moon destroys their theories!

 

Me: Like the theory of talking snakes and the walking dead lol!

 

C: You forgot the talking donkey as well.

 

Me: This could be the longest thread in the history of facebook.

 

 

At which point he didn't respond and we changed the subject in a friendly way

 

[Thurisaz]

There are two kinds of orbital changes about the moon. One is that of its elliptical orbit (perigee/apogee) as already stated. The other is indeed a slow slow slow increasing of its orbital distance because earth, rotating much faster than the moon orbiting it, is "flinging it away" over time. I don't have the exact speed of that memorized but I think it's indeed some 1 to 1.5 inches per year. Let's see: Doing some quick maths that would mean that in a billion years it would move a shocking, evolution-destroying *snicker* 37,500 km away. And I assumed 1.5 inches here, I think it's actually a bit less. Average orbital distance is some 384,000 km today so by this calculation it would have been around half that far away 5 billion years ago. Now consider that the rate of moving away is not constant over time - it has to do with the position of the continents on earth and such. Might have been more on average, might have been less, but still... no problem at all except in the fairy tale world of babblical cretinism.

 

As has been said before, when a cretinist uses maths, don't trust it. Errors by several degrees of magnitude are damn common

[LivingLife]

I think you missed the clincher. If the moon was skimming the tree tops, how is it that it did not get pulled in by a mass with six times the gravity?

 

Fuck you do not need to use math with YEC folk, just throw their babble back at them.

 

e.g.

 

I once had a debate with a YEC and he was on about the exodus and the alleged rock moses tapped and parried with for water in the desert. His claim was also that there were 2M jews in the exodus.

 

So I calculated based on the minimal consumption of 2 litres water per day per person, the assumed average of 7 per household, calculated the size of the camp at 100 sq feet per tent, the length of the queue to collect water from said rock, the volume at which this rock would need to deliver, IIRC 80 water heaters volume per second, the speed at which they would have to move in the queue faster than any known conveyor today and that was just for human consumption. What about the animals? What about missie collecting the water duties to husband and family in preparing meals, the queue was frigging long and would take those on the outskirts of the town the whole day just to get their daily water ration - where did they defecate and urinate? BTW the camp was frigging huge with 2M people as you can imagine.

 

His rebuttal, Oh there were only 600k people, still did not work as the math still scewed him up.

 

You do not even have to debate big bang or evolution. Their bible is so damn ridiculous that should keep you entertained awhile with no more than simple arithmetic and a few google searches for facts like minimum water required to survive. Oh btw the average we consume is 8 litres, about 16 pints a day in a normal environment.

 

The point is, an OEC already has dismissed inerrancy of the bible and it is no good debating them in an area that both of you may be not well versed in. Keep them to a literal six day as that is what the bible says.

 

The same guy I debated was adamant of a 6k-8k age of the earth until I showed him trees that were older than this and then he simply upped it to 10-12k to get around that "problem"

 

One of the areas you can explore is Ice cores and varves which are sedimentary/annual snow layers that way surpasses 6-12k years.

 

My favorite that always has them stumped is the cango caves in SA where I live. They are active formations meaning they are still growing at known rates, that date to about 2 to 2.5Bn years in age.

 

Thus with the latter, according to your friend, the moon is younger than the cave formations in South Africa. Let him try and explain that. Of course, then their "science" becomes flexi preferential wrt constants already proven by science and thus they then will deflect to try and create doubt of the dating methods which the entire scientific community has accepted.

[LivingLife]

Oh and as for the moon moving away and calculating linearly, that would not work in theory as the scale would be logarithmic meaning, the movement away in year one was smaller than in year 6000. Of course the gravity of a larger mass ALWAYS attracts that of a smaller mass, frigging physics 101.

[andyp]

Many thanks for all your excellent replies, perhaps I'll poke a stick into his cage and see if I can take it further at some point.

[skepticalme]

The calculation they are using to arrive at that figure is greatly over simplified. They are trying to do with a single short equation what would really have to be modeled on a supercomputer. All the variables are optimized to give the shortest period of time so they have really calculated the MINIMUM age of the moon. For example, there equation assumes that the Earth is a perfect ellipsoid, it's not. When a continent is under the moon the bulge is much smaller because land is displaced less than water. The difference in displacement between land and water is what causes low and high tides. (Just ask Bill O'Riley he is an expert on this! ) The only way the Earth would be a perfect ellipsiod is if the surface was 100% water. That would give the highest bulge but that bulge would not be advanced as far because there would be no continents pushing against it. If the Earth was all land the bulge would be greatly advanced but the bulge would hardly exist. Pangea Earth, where all the land was in one place and the rest was all ocean, would actually be very inefficient at tidally accelerating the moon. As a result the moon is moving away faster now than it was back then. The current positions of the continents is one of the best in Earth's history at tidally accelerating the moon so the moon is receding quite rapidly today as opposed to the past. The equation in the OP's link has assumed that nearly optimum configuration throughout the entire history of the Earth. As such, there 1.6 billion year figure is the MINIMUM age not the maximum.

[LivingLife]

The idea that some great meteor displaced some of the earth to form the moon IMO seems most plausible and is the prevailing theory. At one time, there must have been a shitload of meteors, scars on the moon and earth bear witness to this.

 

I have never really studied this but the idea that the moon was very close one time skimming the tree tops is illogical. We know the moon is moving away at an inch a year but that is likely because the centrifical effect is just slightly more than the gravitational pull of the earth. So in that scenario, the moon will accelerate away eventually an impact the tides and such.

 

The mere fact that the moon is NOT placed in the heavens in a fixed place shows that it was a natural event or god fucked up once again. When did mankind discover this movement away?

[★ Citsonga ★]

What's wrong with the moon being 1.6 billion years old? As a creationist, he already failed with his question. Creationists believe everything was created in six days, which puts the moon's actual formation way before the christian god decided to create it. If he points out the moon is only 1.6 billion years old, no matter how he got that figure, it wipes out his argument of a young earth and solar system that, by biblical accounts, would only be 8,000 to 10,000 years old by now, counting Iesus' birth of course!

 

I'm not at all defending creationists and their nonsense here, but I do want to point out that this has been slightly misrepresented. When creationists use the moon to say that the universe can't be old enough for evolution, they aren't saying that the moon actually is 1.6 billion years old. They're saying that the maximum possible age for the moon would be 1.6 billion. It's seen as a cap, not the moon's actual age. The YEC people, of course, believe that the universe (moon and all) is only a few thousand years old.

[skepticalme]

What's wrong with the moon being 1.6 billion years old? As a creationist, he already failed with his question. Creationists believe everything was created in six days, which puts the moon's actual formation way before the christian god decided to create it. If he points out the moon is only 1.6 billion years old, no matter how he got that figure, it wipes out his argument of a young earth and solar system that, by biblical accounts, would only be 8,000 to 10,000 years old by now, counting Iesus' birth of course!

 

I'm not at all defending creationists and their nonsense here, but I do want to point out that this has been slightly misrepresented. When creationists use the moon to say that the universe can't be old enough for evolution, they aren't saying that the moon actually is 1.6 billion years old. They're saying that the maximum possible age for the moon would be 1.6 billion. It's seen as a cap, not the moon's actual age. The YEC people, of course, believe that the universe (moon and all) is only a few thousand years old.

 

Because of this they have actually got it wrong on two levels. They have simply taken the present rate of recession and calculated backwards. What drives tidal recession is friction between the continents and oceans. The configuration of the continents has not been constant in Earths history. It just so happens that the present arrangement of the continents yields an unusually high rate of recession, long vertical strips of land (north to south) seperated by ocean. The only way the present configuration would be more efficient would be if North and South America extended all the way to the poles along with Europe and Africa. Past configurations, like Pangea, would have been very inefficient. Their equation assumes this most important variable at its highest value across the entire history of the Earth.

 

Since they are calculating back with the highest rate of recession they have actually arrived at the MINIMUM age of the Earth-Moon system.

[★ Citsonga ★]

What's wrong with the moon being 1.6 billion years old? As a creationist, he already failed with his question. Creationists believe everything was created in six days, which puts the moon's actual formation way before the christian god decided to create it. If he points out the moon is only 1.6 billion years old, no matter how he got that figure, it wipes out his argument of a young earth and solar system that, by biblical accounts, would only be 8,000 to 10,000 years old by now, counting Iesus' birth of course!

 

I'm not at all defending creationists and their nonsense here, but I do want to point out that this has been slightly misrepresented. When creationists use the moon to say that the universe can't be old enough for evolution, they aren't saying that the moon actually is 1.6 billion years old. They're saying that the maximum possible age for the moon would be 1.6 billion. It's seen as a cap, not the moon's actual age. The YEC people, of course, believe that the universe (moon and all) is only a few thousand years old.

 

Because of this they have actually got it wrong on two levels. They have simply taken the present rate of recession and calculated backwards. What drives tidal recession is friction between the continents and oceans. The configuration of the continents has not been constant in Earths history. It just so happens that the present arrangement of the continents yields an unusually high rate of recession, long vertical strips of land (north to south) seperated by ocean. The only way the present configuration would be more efficient would be if North and South America extended all the way to the poles along with Europe and Africa. Past configurations, like Pangea, would have been very inefficient. Their equation assumes this most important variable at its highest value across the entire history of the Earth.

 

Since they are calculating back with the highest rate of recession they have actually arrived at the MINIMUM age of the Earth-Moon system.

 

Well, I didn't say that they were right or smart or had any real knowledge of science. They just try to find ways to manipulate things to make it look believable to the faithful creationists who gobble it all up.