Recent content by Astrophile

Saw a massive UFO at dawn Why is this thread in a forum that is open only to Christians? From the description of its high speed and short duration, the 'UFO' appears to have been a meteoric fireball caused by a piece of interplanetary rock entering and burning up in the Earth's atmosphere. These...

My experience, as an astronomer, is exactly the opposite. When I have started with the scientific method and applied it to physical phenomena, I have found that however far I go, the method makes previously obscure phenomena much clearer, at least within the limits of my own intelligence. When...

The difference between creationism and abandoned scientific theories is that the abandoned scientific theories that you cite have been replaced by other naturalistic theories, not by supernatural or religious ideas. The opponents of evolution, on the other hand, want to replace a scientific...

A student in 2020 would get a better grade for drawing a solar system with eight planets plus an asteroid belt (including the dwarf planet Ceres), the Kuiper belt (including Pluto, Eris and other dwarf planets), and the Oort cloud.

Thank-you. An excellent post and very interesting information.

It wouldn't take long to find out. If the Earth's Moon was 500,000 miles out its orbital period would be 83 days. A Jovian moon at that distance would have P = 4.66 days. What has this got to do with sudden ocean warming?

The fact that life comes from life means that evolution is necessary to explain the diversity of life.

Perhaps you should have put 'does not result only in local climate change'.

No. Boyle's law says that at constant temperature the volume of a gas is inversely proportional to the pressure.

No. That is one of my reasons for not taking the Bible literally.

You are equivocating. If scientists say that one cannot prove a scientific theory , they mean that new evidence may be found that means that the theory will have to be abandoned and replaced by another naturalistic theory that explains the facts better and that makes more accurate predictions...

I don't think that there is any absolute truth, any more than there is absolute space-time. However, I think that there can be relative truth, which is supported by sufficient evidence. What do you think of quantum theory or the thermodynamic theory of heat? Do you think that there is enough...

The 'seven stars' of Amos 5:8 are probably the Pleiades, not the stars of Orion.

If nuclear fusion in the Sun's core were to stop for three hours the Sun would still go on shining during that time. The radiation produced by nuclear fusion in the core takes tens or hundreds of thousands of years to reach the Sun's surface, so changes in the core take a long time to produce...

There are short-lived radionuclides, with half-lives much less than 80 years, that have been followed throughout their decay until none of the radioactive atoms remain. They have shown the same exponential decay throughout the process. Why do you think that long-lived radionuclides should have...