Hypothetical: Creationism becomes standard in science classes

[Ken Behrens]

No need to do that. We can simply do the math. Full of stars the skies are . . . but that number of visible stars is about 2000. How much room in the sky, in terms of degrees, does a star take up? Any telescope Fort could have purchased in his day could never resolve a star into a disk; it would ever resolve as a point in the sky. Fort simply didn't take a fair estimate of how unlikely it would be for one star to overlap another. And apparently you don't either. A star doesn't take up more than a "second" of our sky . . . I trust you know what a second is in terms of degrees . . . and how many "seconds" are there in visible sky at a time?

I was going to say that this is a great argument, until I did the math. A quick search brought up many numbers greater than 2000, up to 6000. But let's go with the low number you gave. I will do the math of placement. That's all we can do at the present.

There are 180*3600 arc seconds on a night-visible half horizon. But we must compute the area of the visible half sphere. If 2pir=180*3600=648000, then r=about 10^6 arclengths, and the area of the half-sphere is (1/2)(4pi*r^2)=about 6*10^12 "square arc-second boxes" where a star could be. Divided by 2000 stars, the probability of a star being seen to cross another (ie be in the same box) is 1/(3*10^9)). Now, that sounds like a lot, and that is where you are coming from, and I was about to agree with you.

But consider that for 100 years (36500 days) 10 astronomers took just 10 looks at the sky per night each, and you have 3.65*10^7 observations. The probability that at least one such astronomer would have seen a crossing is now 3.65*10^7/3*10^9 or just about 1 in 90. Next, it depends how we define "crossing". I have said I will allow for the star to be above or below the first. The more primitive a telescope is, the wider the opening in terms of arc-seconds. If we assume that the astronomers looked with an opening of width just 10 arc seconds, the odds (1:90), suddenly jump to 1:9 of a star crossing (above or below) being seen at least once. None of this allows for backyard astronomers, or the more stars seen in photographic plates, used by astronomers since at least the 1880's. Any of these would increase these odds by at least an order of magnitude each. Ancient plate samples I have found on line currently being digitized clearly show room for a hundred or more start tall, indicating about 100 seconds of arc. This alone makes the odds 10:9 IN FAVOR of seeing one star crossing. Photographic delay increased the number of stars visible, at least doubling them, to odds of 20:9 in favor. And we have taken all the low numbers. Add backyard astronomers, double the number of "looks per night", and now you have 50:9 or a probability of about 1/6 that a star crossing would NOT be seen in 100 years. Part of Fort's argument is sociological: he states in the argument that any amateur astronomer seeing such a thing would have immediately notified his nearest observatory.

We have not yet observed crossings, though, just placement. To prove a crossing, we need for one star to move a little relative to the other star, and that's where it gets tricky. This is the part we cannot evaluate, as we have no idea whether anyone was looking for such a thing, so we cannot evaluate the probability of whether the astronomer would have looked the next day at the same piece of sky or not, to see if star A moved to the left of Star B.

The plates from that period are being digitized now. Let's see if any of them see a star crossing.

 

[Paul of Eugene OR]

I was going to say that this is a great argument, until I did the math. A quick search brought up many numbers greater than 2000, up to 6000. But let's go with the low number you gave. I will do the math of placement. That's all we can do at the present.

I have seen that 6000 figure also, it is for the whole sky both above and below the horizon.

There are 180*3600 arc seconds on a night-visible half horizon. But we must compute the area of the visible half sphere. If 2pir=180*3600=648000, then r=about 10^6 arclengths, and the area of the half-sphere is (1/2)(4pi*r^2)=about 6*10^12 "square arc-second boxes" where a star could be. Divided by 2000 stars, the probability of a star being seen to cross another (ie be in the same box) is 1/(3*10^9)). Now, that sounds like a lot, and that is where you are coming from, and I was about to agree with you.

It is a rather impressive number.

But consider that for 100 years (36500 days) 10 astronomers took just 10 looks at the sky per night each, and you have 3.65*10^7 observations. The probability that at least one such astronomer would have seen a crossing is now 3.65*10^7/3*10^9 or just about 1 in 90.

Aren't the astronomers looking at the same sky? Why would we make it more likely to see a star crossing . . . if they are looking at the same sky?

Next, it depends how we define "crossing". I have said I will allow for the star to be above or below the first. The more primitive a telescope is, the wider the opening in terms of arc-seconds. If we assume that the astronomers looked with an opening of width just 10 arc seconds, the odds (1:90), suddenly jump to 1:9 of a star crossing (above or below) being seen at least once. None of this allows for backyard astronomers, or the more stars seen in photographic plates, used by astronomers since at least the 1880's.

So you are willing to allow for the stars to be merely be so close as to be indistinguishably close, without having to actually physically overlap?

Photographic delay increased the number of stars visible, at least doubling them, to odds of 20:9 in favor. And we have taken all the low numbers. Add backyard astronomers, double the number of "looks per night", and now you have 50:9 or a probability of about 1/6 that a star crossing would NOT be seen in 100 years.

I'm quite sure that stars have been seen against the general fog of the milky way, which we know to be caused by myriads of stars blending their light together. And if you look at any globular cluster, you seeing stars within that distance from each other.

Part of Fort's argument is sociological: he states in the argument that any amateur astronomer seeing such a thing would have immediately notified his nearest observatory.

Here I disagree with Fort. Most amateurs, peeking in an amateur's telescope, seeing one star overlapping another, would not even be able to tell that was what they were seeing, and wouldn't bother to report it.

We have not yet observed crossings, though, just placement. To prove a crossing, we need for one star to move a little relative to the other star, and that's where it gets tricky. This is the part we cannot evaluate, as we have no idea whether anyone was looking for such a thing, so we cannot evaluate the probability of whether the astronomer would have looked the next day at the same piece of sky or not, to see if star A moved to the left of Star B.

The study of proper motions of stars has not been neglected, as you seem to imply here. Have you never viewed projections of how constellations will be changing over the years, as the stars stray from their current positions? Did you never hear of the fastest moving star in our sky? They call it "Barnard's Arrow". You can see a picture of it in the article here . . . Proper motion - Wikipedia

 

[Paul of Eugene OR]

I was going to say that this is a great argument, until I did the math. A quick search brought up many numbers greater than 2000, up to 6000. But let's go with the low number you gave. I will do the math of placement. That's all we can do at the present.

There are 180*3600 arc seconds on a night-visible half horizon. But we must compute the area of the visible half sphere. If 2pir=180*3600=648000, then r=about 10^6 arclengths, and the area of the half-sphere is (1/2)(4pi*r^2)=about 6*10^12 "square arc-second boxes" where a star could be. Divided by 2000 stars, the probability of a star being seen to cross another (ie be in the same box) is 1/(3*10^9)). Now, that sounds like a lot, and that is where you are coming from, and I was about to agree with you.

But consider that for 100 years (36500 days) 10 astronomers took just 10 looks at the sky per night each, and you have 3.65*10^7 observations. The probability that at least one such astronomer would have seen a crossing is now 3.65*10^7/3*10^9 or just about 1 in 90. Next, it depends how we define "crossing". I have said I will allow for the star to be above or below the first. The more primitive a telescope is, the wider the opening in terms of arc-seconds. If we assume that the astronomers looked with an opening of width just 10 arc seconds, the odds (1:90), suddenly jump to 1:9 of a star crossing (above or below) being seen at least once. None of this allows for backyard astronomers, or the more stars seen in photographic plates, used by astronomers since at least the 1880's. Any of these would increase these odds by at least an order of magnitude each. Ancient plate samples I have found on line currently being digitized clearly show room for a hundred or more start tall, indicating about 100 seconds of arc. This alone makes the odds 10:9 IN FAVOR of seeing one star crossing. Photographic delay increased the number of stars visible, at least doubling them, to odds of 20:9 in favor. And we have taken all the low numbers. Add backyard astronomers, double the number of "looks per night", and now you have 50:9 or a probability of about 1/6 that a star crossing would NOT be seen in 100 years. Part of Fort's argument is sociological: he states in the argument that any amateur astronomer seeing such a thing would have immediately notified his nearest observatory.

We have not yet observed crossings, though, just placement. To prove a crossing, we need for one star to move a little relative to the other star, and that's where it gets tricky. This is the part we cannot evaluate, as we have no idea whether anyone was looking for such a thing, so we cannot evaluate the probability of whether the astronomer would have looked the next day at the same piece of sky or not, to see if star A moved to the left of Star B.

The plates from that period are being digitized now. Let's see if any of them see a star crossing.

Here's a link to Ned Wright's "Cosmic Tutorial" page on distance determination. I call you attention to section B . . . where he shows how one uses the proper motion of the stars of a cluster, such as the Pleiades, to . . . . determine their distance!

The ABC's of Distances

 

[Paul of Eugene OR]

I was going to say that this is a great argument, until I did the math. A quick search brought up many numbers greater than 2000, up to 6000. But let's go with the low number you gave. I will do the math of placement. That's all we can do at the present.

There are 180*3600 arc seconds on a night-visible half horizon. But we must compute the area of the visible half sphere. If 2pir=180*3600=648000, then r=about 10^6 arclengths, and the area of the half-sphere is (1/2)(4pi*r^2)=about 6*10^12 "square arc-second boxes" where a star could be. Divided by 2000 stars, the probability of a star being seen to cross another (ie be in the same box) is 1/(3*10^9)). Now, that sounds like a lot, and that is where you are coming from, and I was about to agree with you.

But consider that for 100 years (36500 days) 10 astronomers took just 10 looks at the sky per night each, and you have 3.65*10^7 observations. The probability that at least one such astronomer would have seen a crossing is now 3.65*10^7/3*10^9 or just about 1 in 90. Next, it depends how we define "crossing". I have said I will allow for the star to be above or below the first. The more primitive a telescope is, the wider the opening in terms of arc-seconds. If we assume that the astronomers looked with an opening of width just 10 arc seconds, the odds (1:90), suddenly jump to 1:9 of a star crossing (above or below) being seen at least once. None of this allows for backyard astronomers, or the more stars seen in photographic plates, used by astronomers since at least the 1880's. Any of these would increase these odds by at least an order of magnitude each. Ancient plate samples I have found on line currently being digitized clearly show room for a hundred or more start tall, indicating about 100 seconds of arc. This alone makes the odds 10:9 IN FAVOR of seeing one star crossing. Photographic delay increased the number of stars visible, at least doubling them, to odds of 20:9 in favor. And we have taken all the low numbers. Add backyard astronomers, double the number of "looks per night", and now you have 50:9 or a probability of about 1/6 that a star crossing would NOT be seen in 100 years. Part of Fort's argument is sociological: he states in the argument that any amateur astronomer seeing such a thing would have immediately notified his nearest observatory.

We have not yet observed crossings, though, just placement. To prove a crossing, we need for one star to move a little relative to the other star, and that's where it gets tricky. This is the part we cannot evaluate, as we have no idea whether anyone was looking for such a thing, so we cannot evaluate the probability of whether the astronomer would have looked the next day at the same piece of sky or not, to see if star A moved to the left of Star B.

The plates from that period are being digitized now. Let's see if any of them see a star crossing.

Of course, I was only doing a rough estimate when I suggested stars fit within a single "second" of space in our sky. It's actually quite smaller.

Sirius, the star that is the brightest to our eyes in the sky (excepting the sun of course) is eight and a half light years away. Here's a quote from the Wikipedia article on Sirius

Sirius - Wikipedia

Sirius A has a mass of 2 M☉.[12][97] The radius of this star has been measured by an astronomical interferometer, giving an estimated angular diameter of 5.936±0.016 mas.

mas stands for millisecond of an arc. That is one one-thousandth of a second. Sirius is about 6 thousandths of an arc second wide as seen from earth.

Sirius is much, much closer than most stars and being somewhat bigger than the average star in actual size. Other stars, therefore, take up much, much small angular size in our sky. The size of the spots in our pictures and in our eyes is more a function of the limits of the optical systems being used rather than a real reflection of how much room they actually take up in our sky.

 

[Ken Behrens]

Here I disagree with Fort. Most amateurs, peeking in an amateur's telescope, seeing one star overlapping another, would not even be able to tell that was what they were seeing, and wouldn't bother to report it.



The study of proper motions of stars has not been neglected, as you seem to imply here. Have you never viewed projections of how constellations will be changing over the years, as the stars stray from their current positions? Did you never hear of the fastest moving star in our sky? They call it "Barnard's Arrow". You can see a picture of it in the article here . . . Proper motion - Wikipedia

Today that's true. I've read some of the old newspapers, and I too think it was more likely then. It's not really important though.

Curious, neither the Barnard's arrow gif or the one above it, showing the tracks of the stars, show anything crossing. It would seem like, with all the time lapse photography we now have, that this could be settled quite simply, by examining a time lapse photograph or two, until we find a crossing.

 

[Ken Behrens]

Here's a link to Ned Wright's "Cosmic Tutorial" page on distance determination. I call you attention to section B . . . where he shows how one uses the proper motion of the stars of a cluster, such as the Pleiades, to . . . . determine their distance!

The ABC's of Distances

I certainly agree with the logic of the trigonometric methods. Which is why the apparent lack of a crossing seems like such a surprise. But if something were bending the light, obviously, the methods yield the wrong conclusions. In Part B, he states that in the example he diagrams, the stars appear to be converging because of perspective. Converging certainly comes close to crossing, the only other thing I can think of to explain that, would be stars "combining".

 

[Ken Behrens]

Of course, I was only doing a rough estimate when I suggested stars fit within a single "second" of space in our sky. It's actually quite smaller.

Sirius, the star that is the brightest to our eyes in the sky (excepting the sun of course) is eight and a half light years away. Here's a quote from the Wikipedia article on Sirius

Sirius - Wikipedia



mas stands for millisecond of an arc. That is one one-thousandth of a second. Sirius is about 6 thousandths of an arc second wide as seen from earth.

Sirius is much, much closer than most stars and being somewhat bigger than the average star in actual size. Other stars, therefore, take up much, much small angular size in our sky. The size of the spots in our pictures and in our eyes is more a function of the limits of the optical systems being used rather than a real reflection of how much room they actually take up in our sky.

Agreed, the computations are based on a lot of estimates. Of course, the computations are based on a star being anywhere in that "box" of a square arcsecond, so we can define crossing to mean that, and then the actual size of the star becomes irrelevant.

I'd be willing to concede "crossing" means crossing the apparent recent path of another star. That means we can use a longer measurement also involving several boxes. It is surprising that the best chance to find a crossing seems to be in the analysis of the digitized pictures of the same sections of sky, and none have been observed directly.

 

[essentialsaltes]

If 2pir=180*3600=648000, then r=about 10^6 arclengths, and the area of the half-sphere is (1/2)(4pi*r^2)=about 6*10^12 "square arc-second boxes" where a star could be. Divided by 2000 stars, the probability of a star being seen to cross another (ie be in the same box) is 1/(3*10^9)).

I don't see how that follows. That is roughly the odds of two stars being in the same box. But to see one pass in front of another, you need to see the two stars as in separate boxes, then in the same box, and then in separate boxes again (assuming the resolving power is about 1 arcsecond). This needs to take into account the proper motions (and/or parallax motions) of the stars. Both of which are very small, with few exceptions. No star has a parallax angle as large as an arcsecond. "The average proper motion of stars that can be seen with the naked eye is only about 100 mas/yr." so it takes 10 years before the average star will move from one box to another. Your math seems to assume that every observation is a chance to see a crossing as though the stars all redistributed themselves every night.

Whatever the real odds, it also depends on the ability to recognize that a crossing has occurred. Since you have to have before and after pictures, someone would have to make all these comparisons to notice it happening. As you say, I don't know that there is any effort or interest in doing so.

 

[Paul of Eugene OR]

. . . Your math seems to assume that every observation is a chance to see a crossing as though the stars all redistributed themselves every night. . . .

It occurs to me that KB's math also depended on a single observer being able to scan the whole night sky, taking in every star every observation. This is not going to happen. Peeking through a telescope one has a very narrow part of the sky in view.

 

[essentialsaltes]

It occurs to me that KB's math also depended on a single observer being able to scan the whole night sky, taking in every star every observation. This is not going to happen. Peeking through a telescope one has a very narrow part of the sky in view.

Yes, there are a lot of problems with his calculation. I think he's actually making an implicit assumption that the astronomer can only observe one square arc-second in an observation, but then I don't think the odds are correct for that assumption -- since there are still 10^12 arc seconds in the sky. Possibly it is if the astronomer only looks at patches that have (at least) one star in them.

Because he then talks about widening the field of view: "If we assume that the astronomers looked with an opening of width just 10 arc seconds, the odds (1:90), suddenly jump to 1:9 of a star crossing (above or below) being seen at least once."

Obviously, if the field of view is 10 arc seconds on a side, then there are 100 square arc-seconds in it. So the odds would jump more. That's why I set aside the question of what the 'real' odds may be. Because there are more important problems with the calculation, and an open question of whether anyone has bothered to look for a star occulting another star. Saying "If 10 astronomers spent 100 years looking, the odds are X that they found something" doesn't help if no one is actually looking for such events.

 

[Astrophile]

I was going to say that this is a great argument, until I did the math. A quick search brought up many numbers greater than 2000, up to 6000. But let's go with the low number you gave. I will do the math of placement. That's all we can do at the present.

There are 180*3600 arc seconds on a night-visible half horizon. But we must compute the area of the visible half sphere. If 2pir=180*3600=648000, then r=about 10^6 arclengths, and the area of the half-sphere is (1/2)(4pi*r^2)=about 6*10^12 "square arc-second boxes" where a star could be. Divided by 2000 stars, the probability of a star being seen to cross another (i.e. be in the same box) is 1/(3*10^9)). Now, that sounds like a lot, and that is where you are coming from, and I was about to agree with you.

You seem to have some very strange ideas about astronomy and about what astronomers do. Let's start from the beginning. As you say, correctly, the area of a sphere is (4×pi×(180/pi)²) ~ 41252.961 square degrees. Since there are 3600² = 12,960,000 square seconds of arc per square degree, there are about 5.346×10^11 square arc seconds in the whole sphere, or 2.673×10^11 square arc seconds in a hemisphere. I don't know where you got the number 6×10^12.

But consider that for 100 years (36500 days) 10 astronomers took just 10 looks at the sky per night each, and you have 3.65*10^7 observations. The probability that at least one such astronomer would have seen a crossing is now 3.65*10^7/3*10^9 or just about 1 in 90. Next, it depends how we define "crossing". I have said I will allow for the star to be above or below the first. The more primitive a telescope is, the wider the opening in terms of arc-seconds. If we assume that the astronomers looked with an opening of width just 10 arc seconds, the odds (1:90), suddenly jump to 1:9 of a star crossing (above or below) being seen at least once. None of this allows for backyard astronomers, or the more stars seen in photographic plates, used by astronomers since at least the 1880's. Any of these would increase these odds by at least an order of magnitude each. Ancient plate samples I have found on line currently being digitized clearly show room for a hundred or more start tall, indicating about 100 seconds of arc. This alone makes the odds 10:9 IN FAVOR of seeing one star crossing. Photographic delay increased the number of stars visible, at least doubling them, to odds of 20:9 in favor. And we have taken all the low numbers. Add backyard astronomers, double the number of "looks per night", and now you have 50:9 or a probability of about 1/6 that a star crossing would NOT be seen in 100 years. Part of Fort's argument is sociological: he states in the argument that any amateur astronomer seeing such a thing would have immediately notified his nearest observatory.

This is frankly weird; it is so wide of the truth that it is not even wrong. For one thing, astronomers can stay at an observatory for several hours in a night; they do not just glance at the sky ten times in a night. More important, stars do not move relative to each other in a single night; the parallactic motion takes place over a whole year, and, as various people have already explained, no star has a parallax as large as 1 second (1") of arc.

The nearest star to the Sun that is visible to the unaided eye is alpha Centauri, whose annual parallax is 0.74212"; its distance is thus 278,000 times the Earth's distance from the Sun. It's as if you were standing in Baltimore or Washington DC looking towards New York; if you stepped about 2 metres (6-7') to the east or west, you wouldn't expect the Statue of Liberty to change its position relative to the buildings of Boston in the background.

All other stars are more distant than alpha Centauri, and therefore have smaller annual parallaxes; most of the visible stars have parallaxes less than 0.1", and some, such as Deneb and the stars of Orion's Belt, have parallaxes less than 0.01". To measure such small parallaxes, astronomers need space telescopes such as the HIPPARCOS satellite of 1989 to 1993 and the current Gaia mission.

]We have not yet observed crossings, though, just placement. To prove a crossing, we need for one star to move a little relative to the other star, and that's where it gets tricky. This is the part we cannot evaluate, as we have no idea whether anyone was looking for such a thing, so we cannot evaluate the probability of whether the astronomer would have looked the next day at the same piece of sky or not, to see if star A moved to the left of Star B.

The plates from that period are being digitized now. Let's see if any of them see a star crossing.

Of course astronomers have observed the movement of stars relative to each other; this movement is called the proper motion of the star and it is very important in stellar astronomy. If you look at the SIMBAD astronomical database - http://www.simbad.u-strasbg.fr/simbad - and search for almost any star that you can see without a telescope, the database will give you the proper motion in Right Ascension and Declination. For most visible stars, it is tenths or hundredths of an arc second per year. As an example, the proper motion of the star beta Lyrae is 0.0019" per year in Right Ascension and -0.00353" per year in Declination.

Of course, these stellar proper motions are much too small to be seen with the unaided eye, nor can they be detected over short periods of a year or less. However, for a few nearby fast-moving stars, such as Barnard's star in the constellation Ophiuchus and Kapteyn's star in Pictor, the proper motion is large enough for the star to move perceptibly against the background of more distant stars over a few decades. Another example is the nearby star rho Aquilae, whose proper motion moved it across the constellation boundary from Aquila into Delphinus in 1992 - see Rho Aquilae - Wikipedia . These observations should be enough to show that stars are not all at the same distance, and that they are not painted on or suspended from a fixed canopy.

 

[Ken Behrens]

I don't see how that follows. That is roughly the odds of two stars being in the same box. But to see one pass in front of another, you need to see the two stars as in separate boxes, then in the same box, and then in separate boxes again (assuming the resolving power is about 1 arcsecond). This needs to take into account the proper motions (and/or parallax motions) of the stars. Both of which are very small, with few exceptions. No star has a parallax angle as large as an arcsecond. "The average proper motion of stars that can be seen with the naked eye is only about 100 mas/yr." so it takes 10 years before the average star will move from one box to another. Your math seems to assume that every observation is a chance to see a crossing as though the stars all redistributed themselves every night.

Whatever the real odds, it also depends on the ability to recognize that a crossing has occurred. Since you have to have before and after pictures, someone would have to make all these comparisons to notice it happening. As you say, I don't know that there is any effort or interest in doing so.

You are quite correct. I mentioned that I was only able to do the placement computations for exactly the reasons you give. I think there is interest in digitizing all the old photographic plates, and a LOT of people working on that. I assume within a few years there will be enough information in data bases that a program can be designed to look for exactly what you describe.

 

[Ken Behrens]

Another example is the nearby star rho Aquilae, whose proper motion moved it across the constellation boundary from Aquila into Delphinus in 1992 - see Rho Aquilae - Wikipedia . These observations should be enough to show that stars are not all at the same distance, and that they are not painted on or suspended from a fixed canopy.

That sounds like it will do it. I think Fort was correct at the time he wrote what he wrote. But his challenge seems to have been accepted and solved here, by the observation in 1992.

 

[Ken Behrens]

You seem to have some very strange ideas about astronomy and about what astronomers do. Let's start from the beginning. As you say, correctly, the area of a sphere is (4×pi×(180/pi)²) ~ 41252.961 square degrees. Since there are 3600² = 12,960,000 square seconds of arc per square degree, there are about 5.346×10^11 square arc seconds in the whole sphere, or 2.673×10^11 square arc seconds in a hemisphere. I don't know where you got the number 6×10^12.



This is frankly weird; it is so wide of the truth that it is not even wrong. For one thing, astronomers can stay at an observatory for several hours in a night; they do not just glance at the sky ten times in a night. More important, stars do not move relative to each other in a single night; the parallactic motion takes place over a whole year, and, as various people have already explained, no star has a parallax as large as 1 second (1") of arc.

The nearest star to the Sun that is visible to the unaided eye is alpha Centauri, whose annual parallax is 0.74212"; its distance is thus 278,000 times the Earth's distance from the Sun. It's as if you were standing in Baltimore or Washington DC looking towards New York; if you stepped about 2 metres (6-7') to the east or west, you wouldn't expect the Statue of Liberty to change its position relative to the buildings of Boston in the background.

All other stars are more distant than alpha Centauri, and therefore have smaller annual parallaxes; most of the visible stars have parallaxes less than 0.1", and some, such as Deneb and the stars of Orion's Belt, have parallaxes less than 0.01". To measure such small parallaxes, astronomers need space telescopes such as the HIPPARCOS satellite of 1989 to 1993 and the current Gaia mission.



Of course astronomers have observed the movement of stars relative to each other; this movement is called the proper motion of the star and it is very important in stellar astronomy. If you look at the SIMBAD astronomical database - http://www.simbad.u-strasbg.fr/simbad - and search for almost any star that you can see without a telescope, the database will give you the proper motion in Right Ascension and Declination. For most visible stars, it is tenths or hundredths of an arc second per year. As an example, the proper motion of the star beta Lyrae is 0.0019" per year in Right Ascension and -0.00353" per year in Declination.

Of course, these stellar proper motions are much too small to be seen with the unaided eye, nor can they be detected over short periods of a year or less. However, for a few nearby fast-moving stars, such as Barnard's star in the constellation Ophiuchus and Kapteyn's star in Pictor, the proper motion is large enough for the star to move perceptibly against the background of more distant stars over a few decades. Another example is the nearby star rho Aquilae, whose proper motion moved it across the constellation boundary from Aquila into Delphinus in 1992 - see Rho Aquilae - Wikipedia . These observations should be enough to show that stars are not all at the same distance, and that they are not painted on or suspended from a fixed canopy.

Sorry about the short response a few minutes ago. It will be a few days before I have time to come back and figure out where my 12-th power came from. Almost 900 posts ago (post 11) I said "It does not matter what version is required to be read. Real science is only taught when the theory is evaluated and challenged." That has resulted in me being challenged that I do not know science. I do in fact know what astronomers do. My computations were based on a simple minimalistic approach, and were designed to prove that we "should" have, or will, shortly if not already, prove Fort is wrong. In getting you to post Rho Aquilae, I have done so. My entire approach has been trying to get everyone to seriously challenge a theory.

It feels like we are almost done here. Personally, I do not think we have proved the earth older than 6000 years, but then again, I have seen string theory in ten dimensions. I don't like creationism either. It's full of mistakes. Like Rho Aquilae proves Fort wrong, I personally am waiting for a proof either way on the 6000 years. But in the meantime I think I have proven my point, that one can teach science by posing as (or being) a creationist, and getting people to find the evidence that proves a particular point wrong. Was it worth a 400 post argument? I don't know, but I hope it's over.

 

[Queller]

And those emissions are gone in a matter of a few minutes. You might as well argue that the horse manure on the roads proved that a wagon passed down this road 100 years ago, as to argue that we can use evidence from today to argue what happened a million years ago int he sky. The horse manure is gone, just like my emissions will be gone by tomorrow.

No, your emissions aren't "gone" by tomorrow. Haven't you ever heard of pollution? Not to mention that we aren't talking about minute levels in the evidence we have. We have literal mountains of evidence.

Do you not understand that if say, the hydrogen-helium fusion reaction occurring in the sun were to run at different rates at different times, we would be able to tell that?

 

[Queller]

Elucidating the principles of gear ratios is completed. Actually, I don't think there has been a new discovery in Classical Mechanics in the last century, yet it works for whatever we care to use it for. https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-...thing-more-recent-than-Newtons-laws-of-motion

Americans are a very small percent of the world's population. Much of the third world has yet to embrace logic, let alone science.

And your statistic is qualified by the fact that "evolution" is of two types, macro and micro. Most Christians accept micro but many do not accept macro. Please read the whole article, where it qualifies these things, and the percentages drop dramatically when this is considered.

No, they do not. 62% of Americans accept that humans evolved over time. A little more than half of those say evolution was guided solely by natural forces and another 25% say evolution was guided by a Supreme Being.

Not to mention that nowhere in the article do the words "micro" or "macro" appear nor are these concepts discussed anywhere in the article I listed.

 

[Queller]

Not of it appearing overnight. But a perfect example is the pastor of a church I and my first wife helped with. In about ten years he went from a promise from God to a few million dollar buildings, and the banks soliciting him when they wanted new business. Home - Crossroad Christian Church His story is that God told him what could be done, and also told him the first two people God asked to do this said no. I actually know several more examples, but not as closely as I do this one.

Sorry but that isn't even remotely the same as your hypothetical that someone could say "I have a million dollars" and have it appear in their account. Try again.

 

[Queller]

1. They use procedures developed today to look at evidence seen today, and draw conclusions about the past from that.

Because they have exactly zero reasons to believe the physical forces in action today operated at different rates in the past. None. NAda. Zip.

2. No, the flood is 3122BC. There is in fact a gap of history there, and flood waters in the layered archaeological evidence that produces the history of handwriting from Ur. That gap is mentioned in their history books several times. Egyptian culture starts after that date. There was no second massive flood in 2000BC.

Then you have come up with a date for the Flood that completely contradicts every other creationist out there. On what do you base you claim that the Flood occurred 5139 years ago?

3. Of course not. When no one was in the way, it was faster.

That makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. If that were true, human population growth right now should be zero.

Most humans couples can easily produce 8 kids. That's 4 to1 every 20 years. Doubling every 10 years, gives 2 makes 1000 in 100 years, a million in 200 years,

Wow, you have absolutely no idea how population growth occurs. Here's a couple of sites to help you out.

Population growth basics

Population Growth Calculator

Less when they start killing each other. Just the size of the pyramids proves you are wrong to use today's figure for yesterday's population growth.

Umm what? That's the point I was trying to make. You're the one trying to use today's population growth rate to justify millions of people only 600 years after the Flood.

4. There's a lot of up. Actually, I am now oepning my response pane in a separate window. That helps.
I think that was two conversations. But it is true, I do not need the Bible in heaven, I will be with Jesus personally. And I don't trust anything I see because of perceptual filters, which I have already documented for you.

If you don't trust anything you see because of perceptual filters, then how can you possibly trust the Bible?

5. Most of the people in the third world build their own homes.

Completely and totally irrelevant. Are they houses like this;

or like this?

Do they also diagnose their own x-rays? Seems like your response was nothing more than an excuse to avoid the question.

6. Nothing, I am the one who believes that.

You said you were claiming for them. That means you think they believe that God is interfering with their experiments and won't admit it.

Why would God interfere anyway? Wouldn't that make Him deceptive? Something He is claimed not to be able to do?

7. Circular argument. In Christianity, the basics are defined by what everyone agrees on. Pick any concept you like, and I will find you someone who disagrees. Even such so-called basics as the trinity, necessity of baptism, truth of the Bible. I even know some who do not believe Jesus worked any miracles, or that He rose from the dead. It's hard to get more basic than that.

You start by saying that the basics of Christianity are defined by what everyone agrees on, then go on to list multiple examples of what would be considered by most to be some of the most basics of Christianity that not everyone agrees on. How do you justify that?

8. I have seen a steady stream of wrong biopsy diagnoses for the last 20 years.

Sure you have. So are you suggesting that someone should trust Jan the Hairstylist's diagnosis on whether they have cancer as opposed to their oncologist?

 

[Queller]

The current knowledge about climate change is about global warming. I just posted last night in another thread details of statistical anomalies that prove the data is being manipulated.

Sure, sure. 97% of scientists on the planet are in cahoots to manipulate data.

In any event, it does not matter if you can prove that something happened a million years ago (like extinction of the dinosaurs), that this is anything like what is anything like what is happening now.

1806 was the "year without a summer" in New York State. Crops froze repeatedly all summer resulting in extreme poverty. The cause is presumed to be the Krakatoa explosion. But if you want to study the weather now,t hat is just as good an example as studying the dinosaur extinction. At least we have some idea what might have caused it that is based on some evidence it really happened.

According to you, a volcanic explosion millions of years ago wouldn't have a similar effect on the planet because physics worked differently back then.

I have dismissed geology examples because none of them can be proven, or can be proven to be applicable, even if they are proven.

Just because something doesn't have an "immediately obvious to you" use, doesn't mean it is wrong.

BTW, what standard do you set for something to have been "proven"?

I have also shown that medicine is getting a lot of things wrong.

No, you have claimed that medicine gets a lot of things wrong. you haven't given any evidence of any such thing.

 

[Queller]

You claim to trust experts about science, and you will not trust me about my fields of expertise. It took less than a minute to google these two pictures. The guy had to move the boat more than 5 feet, obviously, but there was some point in the journey, when the torch appeared just to the left of the spire, and then five feet later was on the right. Find me two stars that cross in this manner, if you wish to prove me (and Charles Fort) incorrect.

View attachment 189570

Thanks for proving my point. The boat had to move, according to you, more than five feet. To see some stars cross in this manner, the earth would have to have an orbital diameter in the trillions of miles (probably a lot more not more) rather than 186,000,000.

BTW, those two pictures show the Statue of Liberty at two different distances from the boat (at least twice as far away in the right image as in the left). Show me a star that does that.