Talk:Moon

Disagreement with current entry

I couldn't decide whether to erase this article and make an actual page for the moon, or rebut the points made by Aschlafly. I figured I might be banned if I just rewrote it, but this article is so silly that it doesn't really warrent a point by point rebuttal.

As it is written, this article is not about the moon. It is simply a collection of creationist claims about the moon, which belong in pages for creationism. A page about the moon should certainly include physical data and scientific theories of the moon's formation, and THEN it would be appropriate to bring up the christian objections to those theories.

In addition to the above, these arguments are not even credible. Answers in Genesis asks christians not to argue that a receding moon argues for a young earth. Point 5 is illogical on its face. It says that our solar system is one of few (Source? how few is "few"?) that has a single star. (Also, it says only one moon, which is false, their are many moons in our solar system, earth has only one moon.) The truely illogical part is that being one of these supposed few demonstrates "uniqueness." Clearly if there are multiple systems that meet the criteria, than our solar system is NOT unique. Does this argue for the existence of multiple Gods? Of course not, but no more so than it argues for one God. It is simply an erroneous, illogical, and irrelevant statement. Conservapedia will be rightly mocked for allowing content like this.

So editors, please advise. How should I proceed? Erase the article and replace it with a more thorough, more appropiate page, or will that result in banning?

I advise that you add your description of the moon at the top of the article and put the rest in a section towards the bottom. Thank you for your contributions. ~ SharonS 20:36, 22 February 2007 (EST)

I don't see any way to edit the page, but the reason why one face of the moon is always turned towards earth is because of tidal locking, not coincidence.

"Tidal locking" doesn't explain it. You'll have to justify your argument much better than that.--Aschlafly 00:48, 8 March 2007 (EST)

tidal locking can be seen elsewhere in the solar system. Pluto and Charon, for example. Or the moons of Phobos and Deimos to Mars. Using Mercury to explain the phenomena away isn't really accurate.--Dave3172 00:56, 8 March 2007 (EST)

The same claim was made about Mercury, misleading people for years, before it was proven false. Similar flaws can be expected to be found with the other bodies. "Tidal locking" would not explain the totally synchronous orbit anyway. There would be deviations greater than what is seen.--Aschlafly 01:06, 8 March 2007 (EST)

Point 5 in the article is complete and utter nonsense and should be removed. It is an opinion of one person with absolutely no relation to the moon. Can someone please unlock this article?--Sm355 12:44, 17 March 2007 (EDT)

Further Disagreement with current entry

Some links and comments about the points in the article:

1. If you check the Wikipedia article for Solar Eclipses, you'll note "An annular eclipse occurs when the Sun and Moon are exactly in line, but the apparent size of the Moon is smaller than that of the Sun. Hence the Sun appears as a very bright ring, or annulus, surrounding the outline of the Moon." (there's a pic too) so its not always a perfect match; this is because the moon's orbit is not a perfect circle, but rather an ellipse: "The distance from from the Earth to the Moon varies by about 13% as the Moon travels in its orbit around us." [1]

Of course it's not completely, 100%, absolutely physically identical, and the entry does not claim it is. Neither are perfect twins, by the way.--Aschlafly 12:34, 17 March 2007 (EDT)

The entry claims "Throughout man's existence, the Moon has had the same size as the Sun when viewed from Earth." This is demonstrably not true. It is similar, but if it was "the same" then annular eclipses would not occur. -- Limulus 17:25, 17 March 2007 (EDT)

2. [2] The link given about Mercury also gives the scientific explanation about the moon BTW. Also, the deal with Mercury (from that article) was apparently because it was claimed that the direct visual observation of it indicated that it had a single side facing the sun; *that* was wrong. We can clearly see that the moon presents the same side.

This doesn't refute the statement in point 2 that "The cause of the bulge on the Moon to lock in its rotation remains a mystery to those who reject design."--Aschlafly 12:34, 17 March 2007 (EDT)

quoting from the link: "Since Earth's gravity is much stronger than the Moon's, the tides from the Earth on the Moon are much stronger than the Moon's tides on the Earth. The Moon has tidal bulges just like the Earth, and so it too was slowed by the Earth's pull on its nearer bulge." And especially if the moon started out as a molten mass it would have solidified in a non-spherical shape as a result. -- Limulus 17:25, 17 March 2007 (EDT)

3. [3]

Your point?--Aschlafly 12:34, 17 March 2007 (EDT)

Did you even bother to read the link? Right now point 3 is "The Moon's surface lacks the abundant iron that permeates the Earth, thereby proving that the Moon did not come from the Earth." But iron does not 'permeate' the earth, it is far far more common in the core than in the outer layers. And the computer modeling mentioned at the link demonstrated that if a large enough meteor struck the earth, its iron would sink to the core and blast out a large amount of the less dense outer layers and *that* is what they're saying the moon was made from. They further argue that "The moon has exactly the same oxygen isotope composition as the Earth, whereas Mars rocks and meteorites from other parts of the solar system have different oxygen isotope compositions." -- Limulus 17:25, 17 March 2007 (EDT)

4. That's basically "Slichter's dilemma" and was solved by the 80's [4]

Talkorigins.org is not an authority. Your point?--Aschlafly 12:34, 17 March 2007 (EDT)

talkorigins.org has a lot of very useful material based on mainstream science. You can argue against it point by point, but dismissing it out of hand is not very useful to fixing the mistakes in this article. My point, if you actually read the article, is that since the 80's its been demonstrated that with a better model of the continents incorporated into the earth-moon system you get an age for the moon that is several billion years old, not "a young age for the Moon of no more than one billion years" which led to "Slichter's dilemma". -- Limulus 17:25, 17 March 2007 (EDT)

5. There are "hundreds of billions of stars" in our galaxy alone. [5] So "few" could easily be many many million in just our 'neighborhood' of the universe.

Many millions of solar systems with just one sun? You need to support that far-fetched claim.--Aschlafly 12:34, 17 March 2007 (EDT)

Aschlafly, perhaps you are not aware that the stars we see in the sky are actually different suns. They only look faint and point-like because they are so far away. Astronomers are now finding that many of these stars have their own planets orbiting them, so yes, evidence does point to many millions of solar systems (each orbiting their own parent star) existing in our Galaxy alone.--Macronking 12:42, 17 March 2007 (EDT)

[6] states that "Two out of every three stars in the Milky Way is a member of a binary or multiple star system" So in the article where it says "Our solar system is one of the few that has only one sun." its actually 'one of the third'. Combine that with "hundreds of billions of stars" in our galaxy, that's dozens of billions with only one sun. And BTW, there are "many billion" galaxies in the universe (likely somewhere between 10 and 125 billion [7]) so the number of one sun solar systems is, literally, astronomical ;) The only thing "far-fetched" is to claim that the article as currently written is accurate in the least. -- Limulus 17:25, 17 March 2007 (EDT)

Minor nitpick: I figure it is more like half the solar systems in our galaxy have just one sun. If the other half are binary, then it would still be correct that "Two out of every three stars in the Milky Way is a member of a binary or multiple star system". RSchlafly 17:53, 17 March 2007 (EDT)

Hey, good point! Thanks for spotting that :) -- Limulus 21:55, 17 March 2007 (EDT)

All five of these points should really be dropped, as has been previously suggested. -- Limulus 04:32, 9 March 2007 (EST)

Number 5

The existence of 1 moon and 1 sun suggest 2 gods to me (1+1=2). Throw in the Earth and we are up to 3. Now, toss in the other planets and their moons and we are getting up to a pretty awesome set of gods and goddesses. All we need is a rainbow bridge to heaven!

1 moon; 1 earth = 1 God?

1 web site; one nutcase writer = 1 screwed up view of the world.

Could someone please unlock the Moon page so a professional can repair it? The first four points on this page are demonstratably false, and the fifth point is just religious opinion that has absolutely nothing to do with the Moon.

Current Article Factually Incorrect

Again, can someone please unlock this article? The first four points are factually incorrect. If vandalism is an issue, then at least remove the incorrect material and keep a bare-bones page instead. Macronking

Errors explained and supported are corrected. Ideologically motivated claims of error are not. All I see here so far are the latter.--Aschlafly 12:33, 17 March 2007 (EDT)

The article needs work, and even contradicts itself. Item 2 says "without any plausible physical reason", and then gives tidal forces as a physical reason. Item 3 says "There is no plausible non-creation theory of origin" after giving the theory that the Moon broke off from the Earth. Item 5 is completely silly. There are billions of solar systems with only one sun. We don't know of any with something like the Earth and Moon, but there are certainly many with one sun. RSchlafly 13:10, 17 March 2007 (EDT)

I welcome specific suggestions for improvements. Ideologically motivate changes without proof, of course, would be better sent to Wikipedia!

Point 2 is correct, there is not "any plausible physical reason." The point then notes that tidal forces do not explain the bulge on the moon, and how the same theory for Mercury has been disproven.

Point 3 explains why the Moon could not have possibly broken off from the Earth, which was the leading theory until samples were taken from the Moon that showed its crust is nothing like the Earth's.

Point 5 is correct. I'll look for a cite. There is no evidence that there are "billions of solar systems with only one sun."--Aschlafly 14:40, 17 March 2007 (EDT)

I think that it is reasonable to say that the Earth-Moon system is very unusual in the universe, as far as we know. We don't know how unusual, but some of those unusual aspects may be critical for life on Earth as we know it. It is also a fact that the Moon has less iron than Earth, and is receding.

But it is very misleading to avoid saying that there is a generally accepted scientific theory that the Moon resulted from a gigantic collision with the Earth several billion years ago. The theory explains the lack of iron and several other anomalies. I don't know why you avoid this, since it is consistent with your thesis that the Earth-Moon system is unique.

Your tidal comments are nonsense. The same tidal force theory that explains the Moon's rotation also explains Mercury's. Mercury just happens to be locked into a slightly different resonance. RSchlafly 15:27, 17 March 2007 (EDT)

Simple rebuttal to Aschlafly's Moon point #4

Your Moon point #4 that the Moon must have been receeding faster in the past can easily shown to be false in three lines. First, write the total angular momentum (L) for the Earth+Moon system. It consists of three parts: the Earth's rotation on its axis, the Moon's rotation on its axis, and the Moon's revolution about the Earth:

L = Ie We + Im Wm + r^2 Mm Wm

where Ie and Im are the momen of inertias of the Earth and Moon, We and Wm are the angular rotations of the Earth and Moon, Mm is the mass of the Moon and r is the Earth-Moon radius. Second, since angular momentum is conserved, take the time derivative dL/dt, set it to zero, and solve for dr/dt. For brevity, I'll denote the time derivate with a D, so dr/dt = Dr. This gives:

Dr = -(DWe + DWm(1 + Mm r^2)) / (2 r Wm Mm)

Third, both the numerator and denominator in this expression are positive, since We and Wm are negative (both the Moon and Earth rotate slower, that is We and Wm are less than zero, as energy is lost due to tidal friction). This means that Dr is positive. So the rate of change in the Earth-Moon distance is increasing with time, so it was slower in the past. This refutes your claim that the Moon must have been receeding faster in the past.--Macronking 12:58, 17 March 2007 (EDT)

Aschlafly, I've shown that one critical point in your Moon point #4 is incorrect. Please unlock the page so a professional can correct it.--Macronking 14:15, 17 March 2007 (EDT)

Presumably the speed of the Moon's orbit would decrease as it got further away. I don't see how you factored that into your analysis.--Aschlafly 14:40, 17 March 2007 (EDT)

I agree that Moon point #4 is incorrect, but I am not sure that your argument is correct either. It looks like a good argument that Dr is positive, but then you conclude that Dr is increasing. For that you would need to show that the 2nd derivative is positive. I don't see why that follows from your argument. RSchlafly 14:37, 17 March 2007 (EDT)

Huh

So I thought I had found the most ridiculous articles when looking through various animals, and dinosaurs. I was wrong. This article, if you can even call it that, is basically just a list of how to (wrongly) justify creationism by attempting to find logic in the solar system.

First of all, one source? ONE SOURCE? For an entire article about something which should have plenty of scientific sources about various things? Not a mention of humans landing on the moon, only mention of scientific theory of its creation is trying to disprove it (wrongly again), no mention of the other moons in the universe, no mention of what the moon is made of, no mention of water that used to be on the moon, no mention of impact craters, no mention of physical characteristics, no mention of anything FACTUAL.

1. Very irrelevant, is this an artistic study source or an encyclopedia?

2. Last sentence is again very irrelevant, and there are several different theories to why this occurs. Tidal forces should not be dismissed so easily either, especially with only once source using Mercury to show that it does not work that way. We're not talking about Mercury, are we? This is (like most articles on this website) trying to state things as fact which are opinions.

3. "There is no plausible non-creation theory of origin for the Moon at this time." - Made me fall out of my chair laughing. Did you take science class in school? Doesn't seem like it. There are a ton of theories for the moon, and the primary theory is definately not what you said it was. That was an early speculation at most. I always thought that the primary theory was that a space rock hit earth and part of that formed the moon, which also explains the Earth's tilt.

4. Wrong wrong wrong wrong WRONG. The main theory, once again, is not that the piece broke off from the Earth. The theory that a space rock hit the Earth would account for everything, making this point completely irrelevant, biased, and incorrect.

5. "Our solar system is one of the few that has only one sun. Only one sun and only one moon: this uniqueness may reflect the existence of only one God." - more laughter from me. How does it reflect the existance of one God? Does that mean in the billions of other solar systems there are other gods? And if they have two suns and two moons, there's two? It makes no logical sense what-so-ever, and is once again irrelevant to this article. If you have personally travelled to every solar system, I suppose that would be a reliable source. But, you haven't, and haven't cited anything for this amazingly inaccurate statement, so please fix the article. --ALFa 15:37, 17 March 2007 (EDT)

I agree. Unlock the article. RSchlafly 15:46, 17 March 2007 (EDT)

"Global" (no pun intended) reply to the above

As a simple matter of the history of theories of the moon's origin, the above criticism is completely false. There were "accepted" theories of the moon's origin, and they were all disproven by the lunar landings. Even if you cling to those theories, please admit the historical facts. Afterwards, in a panic, scientists convened to develop a brand new theory of the moon's origin. The current theory was the result of the scientists not being able to think of any other atheistic explanation. That's all.

Let's proceed this way. Obviously ALFa wants to take a crack at a content page. I've just written Moon Theories and it is unlocked and available for ALFa to edit. After we improve it and hopefully agree on some content, then let's merge the best of it with the Moon page. Sound like a good procedure? Feel free to start right in.--Aschlafly 19:13, 17 March 2007 (EDT)

" any other atheistic explanation ". Ok, but filling the gaps in science with religious faith is not in the least bit helping anyone. All you have done is criticise the current theory. There is most definitely no religious explanation that can be tested since it requires a person to have faith in something that cannot be seen, heard, sensed etc. For example, there is an anomaly with the Pioneer 10 spacecraft where it has veered off course and can not as yet be explained by scientists. One could say that God had a "hand" in this, but we cannot test this hypothesis at all and requires complete faith to continue to believe this idea. That is why more scientific investigation needs to be conducted and not signing the idea straight off to God.--Sm355 19:27, 17 March 2007 (EDT)

Article is disturbing

I think that Ronald Reagan is a great man. I also see dangerous doctrines of social engineering coming out of the ideology of Darwinism. But when I look at this locked moon page, I see a strange message that conservatives shouldn't overthink astronomy. There is a lot that the page doesn't say about the moon. It doesn't give its diameter, its mass, the length of its orbit, or its distance from the earth. It doesn't give its composition as studied in the Apollo program. Heck, it doesn't even say that men landed on the moon at all! All it does is give a numbered argument for why the moon is evidence for young-Earth creation specifically. It also has only one single reference for one of its many points.

So I took an interest in the references. I did not know that the moon is receding from the Earth, so I looked that up. NASA says that the moon is receding from the Earth at 3.8 centimeters per year [8], whereas this page says: "The Moon is currently receding from the Earth at less than 6 inches per year. The Moon could never have been closer than about 150,000 miles or it would have been broken up by tidal forces. If the rate of recession is assumed to have averaged about 6 inches per year,..." If you are only interested in what the rate of recession is less than, why stop at 6 inches? Why not say, "The moon is currently receding from the Earth at less than 10 feet per year. If the rate of recession is assumed to have averaged about 10 feet per year..."

I also did not know much about the surface composition of the moon, so I looked that up too. This page says, "The Moon's surface lacks the abundant iron that permeates the Earth, thereby proving that the Moon did not come from the Earth." I think that the first half of that is true, but according to this page [9], the Earth's surface also lacks the abundant iron that permeates the Earth. Are we not supposed to think about the difference between surfaces and permeations? PBrown 13:40, 17 March 2007 (EDT)