Sometimes the spectacle in the comments can be as fun as the articles. Here are a couple of examples loons trying to address the criticisms directed at their ideas on a couple of blogs.
Larry Moran attended a lecture by a creationist, Kirk Durston. The creationist pulled the usual stunt: cite a few of the multitude of science papers out there, and misrepresent it to support his fallacious claims. Not even Larry is able to have all those papers right there in his forebrain, which allows Durston to briefly pretend to be the voice of authority. Of course, later Larry looks it up and points out the misrepresentations. The fun part is that Durston joins the thread to argue. Durston also objects to having his argument for an omnipotent Intelligent Designer called a “god”.
There’s more fun along the same lines at Scientia Natura: Shalini has a geocentrist on the line. This is hilarious.
What’s particularly amusing is how much alike Durston and the anonymous geocentrist sound: both are completely convinced that the scientific evidence actually supports their ludicrous positions.
Actually, I have a fairly hilarious antivaxer in the comments of one of my posts as well. It must be the holidays that bring them out.
In a thread on Jason Rosenhouses’ blog there is a discussion between several individuals, including myself, and a YEC calling himself Jon S. Compared to Mr. Jon S, Mr. Dunston looks like a serious scientist. Mr. Jon S has to be a moron of monumental proportions. Never have I heard anyone talk so knowledgeably from such a vast fund of ignorance. Link provided below. If nothing else, the thread may provide some amusement.
http://scienceblogs.com/evolutionblog/2007/10/in_which_i_agree_with_michael.php#comments
I looked at the Shalini sites that you referenced. It gets old very quickly to see BOTH sides doing nothing but calling each other stupid and/or ignorant. Could I get some sane science knowlageable people to answer a couple of questions?
The geocentrist argues that the Sun revolves around the Earth, and the heliocentrists argue the opposite. Isn’t it true in fact that it is only a mstter of point of reference and convenience to accept heliocentrism. In fact, as with binary stars, isn’t it more correct to say that the Sun and the Earth, and all the solar planets revolve around a common center of mass? It is only because the Sun is so comparatively massive that it is convenient, and apparent, that the planets revolve around the Sun.
Secondly, geocentrist argues for “aether”. Didn’t Michelson/Morley disprove that theory?
It is true that the planets and the Sun revolve around a common center of mass. However the geocentric position is invalid because, firstly, the center of mass is close to the Sun, and secondly because it implies that the planets also revolve around the Earth, which they do not. The motions of the Sun and the planets in the sky only make sense if all of them, including the Earth, revolve around the Sun. Geocentrism cannot explain the retrograde motion of Mercury and Venus, nor can it explain the cycle of seasons we experience on Earth. For that, a heliocentric model using the Sun as the foci of the solar system is required to predict the astronomical phenomena we see on this planet.
The geocentrist has now branched out to gravity denial.
Go figure.
I don’t get anything fun like that. I just get the occasional godbot. Once, however, I got a D’Souza apologist which was actually kind of nifty.
Still, though, I would like an occasional crazy person. Maybe I should do more posts on gravity?
Oh, good. All you need now is for somebody to cut the strings he has tied around his ankles, and he’ll float away.
Or maybe he is wearing “heavy boots”?
OK, it’s been a while since my college physics classes, but this actually made my head hurt:
But, at least such questions don’t rise to the level of “salvation questions.”
Christ, this demented fuckwit makes the Christian Reformed fuckwits I spent time with this weekend. They may deny evolution, but I think they’ve given up on geocentrism. Just wow.
oops…makes the fuckwits I spent time with seem a bit less demented. But only a bit.
(I had a brain-fart while composing my first attempt at a reply, and then hit “post” while trying to preview it. If it shows up, please ignore it.)
#3:
The geocentrist argues that the Sun revolves around the Earth, and the heliocentrists argue the opposite. Isn’t it true in fact that it is only a mstter of point of reference and convenience to accept heliocentrism.
Not really, unless you also think “Jupiter orbits the Earth” is just as vaid a point of view as “Jupiter orbits the Sun”.
In fact, as with binary stars, isn’t it more correct to say that the Sun and the Earth, and all the solar planets revolve around a common center of mass?
In a two-body problem you might argue that. But:
(i) If you want to think of the Earth-Sun system as two bodies orbiting each other, work out where the the centre of mass of the Earth-Sun system is. (Here’s a hint – it lies within the Sun. At best you could say the Sun “wobbles” a bit as the Earth whirls around it. But as you recognize, there are other planets to consider.)
(ii) The common centre of mass about which all of the planets orbit is only mildly affected by the Earth. If we’re talking two-body systems in the solar system, the Earth isn’t the second body – Jupiter is.
Secondly, geocentrist argues for “aether”. Didn’t Michelson/Morley disprove that theory?
That depends on whether he means exactly the same aether as they tested for, I guess.
Dammit, some remnants of the brain fart remained there. Please ignore the “In a two-body problem you might argue that”; I was drawing a parallel to the binary star thing that no longer makes sense in the context I’ve left it in. (Of course, in the solar system, the planets still all orbit the common centre.)
[The common centre of mass of the solar system generally lies just above the surface of the sun (exactly how much varies, but it’s dominated by Jupiter, and on average lies about 1.07 times the radius of the Sun from its centre. When Saturn and Jupiter are on opposite sides of the Sun, the center lies well inside the Sun.]
Isn’t the center of mass of the earth-sun rotating system actually INSIDE the sun?
#3 wrote: “Isn’t it true in fact that it is only a mstter of point of reference and convenience to accept heliocentrism.”
Not really. The geocentrist theory ends up requiring a lot of ad hoc assumptions to make it work. Take a look at this link. Ptolemy had to introduce extra ‘epicycles’ (circular motions) for all the planets to explain their apparent ‘loop-the-loop’ motion. The system is mathematically consistent, but doesn’t really give any insight into what’s going on. Why do these extra circular motions occur? How to we predict their size, and period? Ptolemy couldn’t answer that.
“In fact, as with binary stars, isn’t it more correct to say that the Sun and the Earth, and all the solar planets revolve around a common center of mass?”
That’s basically what the term ‘heliocentric’ means in modern parlance. Since the center of mass lies so close to the center of the Sun, it’s less wordy in conversation to say ‘heliocentric’ than ‘centric about the common center of mass which happens to lie really, really close to the center of the sun’.
“Secondly, geocentrist argues for “aether”. Didn’t Michelson/Morley disprove that theory?”
Michelson/Morley failed to detect motion of the Earth with respect to some hypothetical medium through which light propagates. I suppose a geocentrist would argue that they didn’t detect it because the Earth isn’t moving! However, in order to explain all the other experimental results of relativity, and keep an aether, they need to use a large number of additional ad hoc assumptions to fit the data.
That’s the real problem with this whole aether/geocentrist/literal-Bible mentality: in order to make their theories work, they need to add more and more arbitrary rules and assumptions until their ‘theory’ matches their results. In essence, they’re curve-fitting N data points by a function with N (or more) free parameters, something that you can always do perfectly, but doesn’t carry any useful information or predictive power. Einstein’s special theory of relativity answered numerous questions with just two fundamental postulates.
The sun and planets have to revolve around the earth. That’s where I live.
MAJeff. I feel your pain. Most of my family and relatives are Christian Reformed, although I think the ones in NW Iowa tend to be even more conservative. I endured a couple of Calvinist funerals this year. Instead of taking this one last chance to fondly remember the deceased, you get an hour of oppressive religious BS followed by ham buns in the church basement.
ham buns in the church basement
This year there were also turkey buns. With Jell-o–red with fruit cocktail, of course; weak coffee-those Dutch Iowans make the worst coffee (grandma, the dead one, always made horrible coffee); and an assortment of bars (Regional dialects matter here. In Iowa, it’s pronounced “barz.” In Minnesota, it’s “bars.” The final “s” is unvoiced.)
I nearly cried when i saw Boston out of the plane windows, I was so happy to be home. The cat purred for two hours when I got back.
#13 wrote: “Instead of taking this one last chance to fondly remember the deceased, you get an hour of oppressive religious BS followed by ham buns in the church basement.”
I’m afraid to ask what part of Christ the ham buns represent in the church’s teachings… :P
And, to be the good son and not make waves, I held my tongue when the minister said during the funeral and while sitting with us eating those buttered buns, that my life had no meaning.
I’m afraid to ask what part of Christ the ham buns represent in the church’s teachings… :
Repeat with the feyest lisp you can manage:
“This is my body…..Take……Eat….do this in remembrance of me”
Drama queen at an orgy.
I’m afraid to ask what part of Christ the ham buns represent in the church’s teachings… :
Or, another way of looking at it is that since Jesus freed Christians from the old testament laws, as evidenced by the ham buns, it’s the symbolic foreskin of christ, made from unkosher meat, signifying the Calvinist repudiation of Jesus’ Jewish past.
(grandma, the dead one, always made horrible coffee)
As a pathologist, I can assure you that dead people always make bad coffee…
Isn’t there some roasting process to get rid of the bitterness? No, wait, she was Iowa-Dutch Christian Reformed; not possible to get rid of it.
The geocentrist argues that the Sun revolves around the Earth, and the heliocentrists argue the opposite. Isn’t it true in fact that it is only a mstter of point of reference and convenience to accept heliocentrism.
Well, not if you are discussing causes. A heliocentrist believes bodies of mass obey Newtons laws and the body with greater mass effects the body with lesser mass to a greater degree. Planets’ retrograde motion to the Earth can only be only be explained via mutual motion and an arbitrary point of reference. This modern geocentrist, however, believes there are forces keeping the earth is stationary at the center of the universe and the sun and galaxies and entire universe are forced upon to rotate the earth every 24 hours and that they travel much faster than the speed of light (he doesn’t believe in relativity, quuantum physics, or dark matter, either). It’s far far far more than a matter of perspective. This guy is a crackpot.
However he could be a hoax. His argument that non-christian religions are often sun worshippers and he wonders if the athiestic heliocentrists are simply continuing to worship the sun over God is pretty funny in its cluelessness.
The geocentrist quotes this book:
http://www.catholicintl.com/products/books/gwwprint.htm
Googling the names of some of the “scientists” who have commented favourably upon it, I came across this site:
http://www.geocentricity.com/
High comedy, folks. Highly recommended for reading during the mid-morning coffee break. Please keep coffee well away from keyboards and/or lab equipment while reading. Thank you.
MAJeff: …to be the good son and not make waves, I held my tongue when the minister said…that my life had no meaning.
I bet it would also have been necessary for you to not offend him by criticising his faith too? Don’t you love the hypocrisy? I guess I’m not so good a son — I threw a priest bodily from my home when he tried that with me (at my grandmother’s bequest I later learned) at the age of 12.
Googling the names of some of the “scientists” who have commented favourably upon it, I came across this site:
http://www.geocentricity.com/
Here’s a nice exercise in saying utterly nothing:
http://www.geocentricity.com/ba1/no113/Teeny-weenie%20itsy-bitsy%20universe.pdf
So, says the athiest rationalist, if the universe is so big doesn’t it seem staggering to imagine the entire universe rotating around the earth in 24 hours. Well, answers the level-headed servant of God, if you represent the astronomical unit of the distance from the Earth to the Sun as the thickness of a sheet of paper, then the known universe of 27 billion lightyears becomes only 80% of solar system. It doesn’t seem so big now, does it?
I had to read that twice to see if I missed the point.
So while creationists argue about how unimaginable huge numbers like 10^216 (“you can’t right it on paper!!!!!”) they completely flip backwards to say God shoves an astronimical unit to the size of a proton and pushes the three meter universe around the earth every 24 hours.
Simply astounding!
The universe is actually Donalcentric. Rigorous proof offered below.
From where I am to the edge of the universe is an infinite distance in ANY direction.
If the distance to the edge from a point is the same in ny direction, then that point is the centre.
I am the centre of the universe.
surely this geocentrist chap is just attempting a bad parody of ID? he’s coming out with all this Teach the Controversy style crap now.
To dumb down Efrique’s infinately more detailed post, whilst it is true that the Earth orbits around the Sun, it is not true that the Sun orbits around the Earth. There ain’t no symmetry!
What utterly gobsmacks me is that the “Association of Biblical Astronomy” has evolved from the Tychonian Society. Oh my silver nose, are they into the all the doings of Uraniborg as well? Methinks there is more than one leg being pulled and bells abound.
I’m reminded of when my Father was dying and the priest would come over every couple days.
I was sitting in the living room with him trying with all my might not to say anything untoward, trying to be cordial with smalltalk, which I despise.
Anyway, I knew his father had been ill so I asked how his father was doing and he said, “He’s doing a lot better, knock on wood (as he taps the table beside him!)
I just stared at him for a couple seconds and I think he knew he was busted. I finally could not resist and said, “you just knocked on wood.”
His face went beet red and all he could do was muster a brief guilty-as-sin, shit eating grin. Superstitious follows superstions, I guess.
Tychonian Society? Oh God, I used to get their newsletter umpty-umpty years ago (it was free, okay?) and their nuttiness never ceased to amaze me.
gg@16, I was surprised to discover earlier this year that not all religious pablum is necessarily oppressive.
After my grandpa died last May he had a religious ceremony, but for a change I could deactivate the cynical overdrive that normally fires up when immersed in hymns, because my grandpa was a CoE vicar and priest, so religious stuff actually *was* the centre of his life.
(The bishop giving the service wasn’t talking about someone he’d never met, but rather about a working colleague of his whom he admitted was his superior in theological knowledge, so it wasn’t dull religious stuff at all but rather a collection of fascinating anecdotes. As an aside, the CoE is a crazily syncretic church: I’m not really sure that any other Christian churches would encourage a vicar who still considered himself Jewish as well as Christian, who used smatterings of Hebrew in most services, and who kept a menorah in the church for old times’ sake.
He was notably bad at spreading the word to his own family: when communion was held towards the middle of the service, his congregation got up, but the family in the front two rows *all* stayed where they were. That’s a 100% deconversion rate. Good going, Erich, even for the UK. ;} )
The best comment of all from the Moran blog:
“Timothy links to New Scholars Society, which purports to be ‘… an affiliation of Canadian, christian university professors. Our motto is “Petere Veritas”, which means, “pursue truth”.'”
“That’s some rich irony. I love how the ID folks are desperate for the trappings of legitimacy, if not the substance. Their ‘Latin’ motto is not only grammatically incorrent — ‘to pursue truth’ should be ‘petere veritatem’ — but the primary meaning of the verb petere is usually a hostile sense. Their motto might as well mean ‘to attack the truth’.”
Brilliant.
I don’t have much experience with Christian Reformed folks; we in the RCA didn’t fraternize with those splitters.
Oh god yes, the ham buns! That made me burst out laughing. But are you sure they’re not just an Iowa thing in general?
My guess is Midwestern. The week before grandma actually died, I was talking about going back to Iowa with friends, who happened to be from Minnesota and Wisconsin. We all talked, and laughed, about the ham buns–and jello with fruit cocktail.